To Go Home
by PickleDillo
Summary: Being dropped into a pre-industrial world seems to have more downfalls than perks for Maggie. Even so, she's managed to find a home with hobbits and finds a definition of love that she thought she knew, all in the form of one baby hobbit by the name of Bilbo Baggins. [Re-telling, Realism, Set 50 years prior to The Lonely Mountain]
1. Happenstance

**Chapter One**

_Happenstance_

* * *

_It wasn't supposed to end this way. Her lungs pulled with the strength of a string and her throat gurgled with the weight of her blood that flooded her mouth. The ground beneath her felt ice cold and the mud grasped at her armor and tugged her further into the depths. She wasn't meant to die this way. She wasn't meant to die here. She wasn't meant to_ die,_ at all!_

_She was supposed to be home. Her fingers were smashed under a thick and blackened boot. She was supposed to be home, with her cat and fish. Through the stain of gray that filtered her vision, she could see the faint glint of a dripping mace being raised above her head, her one good hand flying up to stop it. _'As if that could stop a fifteen pound weapon. Right.'

_The least Fate could have given her was to have made it back to the Shire, with Bilbo._

'But now I won't have even that.'

_The mace came down with a roar._

* * *

"Late, late, _late._" She grumbled with enough venom that only served to poison her mood further. She sighed harshly through her nose and the car's door was flung open with a crack and snapped back at her with the force that remained. A grunt was all the door received before she threw herself into the driver's seat of the car and the ignition was given a violent twitch with the keys from her hand. The visor was pulled down for a moment, a quick inspection to make sure her hair was in place and her face was at least decent.

"Of all the times to be late, today was not one of them!" With a growl, the visor was flipped back up and the car shifted into gear. The road was clear and she pulled away from the curve with only the smallest of hesitations. The engine roared as she heaved a foot against the pedal and the tire yanked the road from under the car, sending her flying forward.

The four-way intersection came up quick and it was only seconds after she hit the brakes that her fingers gripped the steering wheel with new strength.

She wasn't going to stop. Didn't matter how hard she slammed her heel to the brake. She could only swallow and pray she got through the intersection unscathed. Her brown eyes flickered to her left and a small, breathless laugh escaped her throat.

_'Not so sure that truck is thinking the same thing.'_ In the span of time it took her to inhale enough air for a scream, a light flashed behind her eyes and all she could recall were her pets and the hope that someone would remember them after she was gone.

* * *

There was a distant and muffled sound of chatter that bled into her ears. The skin along the inside of her nose burned from the coating of dirt she had inhaled. Her throat was dry and her mouth gaped like a gasping fish from the water. A hand came to her shoulder and gently the fingers curled into her skin. _'Skin?'_ Lead weights kept her eyes from flying open and she groaned with the effort to roll onto her back. '_Did I... did I fly out of the car? Oh god.'_ The hand on her shoulder was careful and calm, the palm smoothed out over her shoulder blade and rubbed her muscles soothingly. For some odd reason, this brought tears to her eyes.

That seemed to set the weight back and now she could blink and look around her. Trees surrounded her, sunlight glittered through the canopy and several birds chirped incessantly from above. Another blink and a face swam into her vision. She could feel her brow pinch with confusion as the mop of curly hair on the woman's head was accented with pointed ears. The confusion only grew stronger when a male came up beside the woman and he, too, had pointed ears. He scratched at them lightly and then sighed and shifted to a knee to be closer. A new panic set into Margaret and she gasped and yanked her shoulder out of the woman's grasp to curl into herself.

A round of hushed chatter passed between the two who had found her and before long a cloak was thrown over Margaret's naked body. She shivered from the rough feel of wool and gasped again, a sob now mangling itself from her throat. _'Where the hell am I?'_ A hand laced its fingers into her tangled hair and the woman cooed at her softly. Margaret clamped her mouth shut and inhaled painfully, doing what she could to control her panic. She tried to sit up and a pair of hands found purchase on the small of her back and her shoulder, lifting her and steadying her when she stuttered from pain.

The world viciously tilted one way and then another and Margaret couldn't stop herself from being suddenly sick just in front of her, nearly half of what came up from her stomach now covered her knees. The woman's hand gracefully massaged up and down Margaret's spine, a soft tone echoed in her voice and it was only then that Margaret realized she couldn't understand what the woman was saying. Confused and sick, Margaret brought a hand to her mouth to stop any more sick from coming up and her dizzying gaze desperately tried to focus on the couple that stood next to her.

_'Wait. Are they standing?'_ Her eyes flickered over the couple and another vile pump of sick nearly slipped past her fingers. Pointed ears, hairy feet, pudgy faces, and stump bodies. The curly hair on both their heads and their rosy cheeks would have almost been enough to mask the rest of it, if Margaret's weird tunnel vision hadn't focused on their stranger characteristics. They were small, bent at the waist and the woman's hand came to Margaret's forehead, a sweet and motherly smile colored her face. The woman's mouth moved, and sound was produced, but for the life of her, Margaret couldn't comprehend the words that came out.

"I'm – I'm sorry, I don't know – I don't know what you're saying." Margaret hiccuped between her fingers. Now the couple stuttered in their movements and glanced at each other. The woman's brow furrowed over her honey brown eyes and slowly, she spoke again. Still, it was nothing Margaret could understand and so she shook her head, "I still don't know... what you're saying, I'm so sorry." A shiver ran through her spine, _'What if it isn't her? What if it's me? Did I hit my head? What's happening?'_ Margaret hadn't noticed her lungs began to hyperventilate until the woman reached forward and held her face in both of her calloused, warm hands.

The simple touch was tender and Margaret melted into the woman's palms. Tears raced down her face and the woman smiled as she thumbed them away, whispering something to her male companion. The male seemed reluctant to agree to whatever it was that the woman had asked of him, but after a firm look from his companion, he nodded and left them. Margaret watched with a hazy gaze as he trotted up the grassy hill and came to a stop near a horse-drawn cart. If she wasn't confused before, she was _definitely_ confused now.

"Where am I?" Margaret whispered to the woman that stayed with her. "This – how did I get here?" The trees, the grassy hill and bright sunlight were nothing that she remembered. The city had surrounded her last time, with a gasoline flavored fog that blasted through her air-conditioning and a screeching truck who's blaring horn had done nothing to help the situation she had previously suffered. The woman stood back and winced as she straightened her spine and Margaret bit her lip at the sight of a very swollen belly that protruded from the woman's hips.

When her eyes came up to the woman's, there was only a smile that greeted her. A hot blush flooded Margaret's face when she turned her eyes away. Margaret pulled the cloak tighter around her shoulders and tucked her folded and soiled legs closer, to hide them within the fabric. The pointed-ear man soon returned and he carried a larger piece of cloth. Gently, he stepped forward and murmured something to her, but at the shake of her head, he sighed and swung the cloth around her back to let it float down onto her shoulders and head. The woman spoke and pointed to her and her male companion nodded with a hand held out for Margaret to take, and she did so with hesitation.

She stood and her knees whined with the weight of her body and she stumbled down onto her hands and nearly kissed the ground in front of her. The couple shot forward and instantly two pairs of hands came to her shoulders, her neck, and her arms to try and steady her. Margaret swallowed, but the sick still returned and splattered against the ground and over her hands. More murmurs passed over her head and with a firm heave, the man pulled her up to her feet. Margaret swallowed a scream when she became aware of why she had stumbled.

She was shorter. Portlier. Her hips were wider and her feet felt like concrete. With a swaying head, she glanced down at her shuffling legs as the couple hoisted her between them and escorted her to their cart. Her toes were massive, but didn't appear so next to her enormous feet. Her shapely legs were gone and were replaced by thick and muscled tree trunks. _'This isn't my body.'_ Her lungs stuttered and hiccuped, threatening to choke her into submission, into darkness. _'What's happening? What's happening to me!'_

She had only managed to hook her fingers onto the back end of the cart before another wave of nausea flooded her system and her head came down with a crack.

* * *

"Bella, I do not believe this to be a wise choice." Bungo murmured gently with the reigns of his pony tight in his palms. Now and again his gaze would be cast back and the female dwarf's bundled form sent a renewed sense of dread through his veins. Bella's calming hand came to rest at the crook of his elbow and patted him lightly.

"I know you have fear, my love, but look at her." Bella could not turn to see the female as her belly kept her still and heavy. Instead her eyes came to her husband and she tilted her head, a tone to her words. "She was indecent and... you heard her, Bungo. That was not in any form of Westron. I do not believe that could have been her language, either. We must help her, you know this."

Bungo pursed his lips and flicked the rope in his hands. "I know what you say is true, I only fear... what could have left her like that? You saw her face, something... it looked as though she had been beaten."

"Even more of a reason that we must give her aid, my love." Belladonna kept her voice light and her words easy, but she too felt the distress that coursed through her husband. "She was scared, you could see that in her eyes. She is lost. We shall take her home, let her rest and find her aid. Perhaps then we can figure out what has happened to her."

"Of course, dear. I suppose there is no sense in changing your mind, the dear probably would not have anywhere else to go." Bungo agreed and with a quick whistle to the pony, the cart rolled along at a quicker pace, back toward the Shire.

* * *

**Note:** A new inspiration. Comments, question, or concerns?


	2. Acceptance

**Chapter Two**

_Acceptance_

* * *

When Margaret felt herself become aware of her surroundings, it was with a jerky surprise to find that she was wrapped snugly in a mound of blankets and secured over a feather-stuffed bed. _'Who uses those anymore?'_ Slowly she shifted her hips and winced tightly as a hot pain shot up her back and into the base of her skull. She shuddered and exhaled when she realized her lungs had frozen up with pain. A soft creak came from her right and she blinked to clear her vision. A shadowy figure passed into the room and before it reached the bed the figure morphed into the woman she had seen before.

"Where am I?" Margaret tried and her voice cracked crustily. The woman paused in her step and for a moment, Margaret felt relief at being understood. Not that it mattered, because soon after the woman replied and once more, it was in a language Margaret couldn't hope to understand. A frustrated groan left her and she shifted in bed to bring herself up against the headboard. The woman came forward and with a firm hand she helped Margaret up to settle comfortably in place.

A mug of tea was placed into her hands. _'The hell?'_ Margaret brought the mug up to her face and sniffed at it experimentally. The herbs were strong and wafted straight through her nose to her stomach, leaving her mouth to water as her hands brought the mug to her lips for a small sip. The liquid burnt her tongue, but it was substantial enough to root her mind back to the present and out of her clouded thoughts. A spark of cold dread went through her bones and her hands began to shake. Immediately, the woman pulled the mug away from her and brought a short hand to Margaret's forehead, feeling for a fever. The woman murmured gently and her fingers glided down under Margaret's chin to lift it up.

Margaret gasped for air, inhaling it out of greed and her head whirled. _'I remember. She found me, but where am I? What happened? Who is she? Who – and,'_ another wave of panic gripped her throat and she felt a scream bubble up from her gut. The woman proved faster than Margaret's terror and shook out her shoulders, her voice clear and stern. _'Probably telling me – to get a grip. Shit, Maggie, get a fuckin' grip.'_ Margaret held her breath and nodded her head at the woman; her thick hands came up and gripped the other woman's forearms.

'_Wait.'_

Alarmed, Margaret's gaze shot down to where her hands were, or at least, _should_ have been. Instead, thick protrusions replaced her fingers. Short and pudgy with heavy knuckles and gnawed out nails. Her arms were bare and scratched; a few dozen bruises now littered her skin almost as much as her freckles did. Sensing her confusion, the woman leaned against the bed and sat down, calling to her. Margaret released her and tugged on the blanket, nearly dislodging the very pregnant portly female in her hurry. Once removed from her seat, the woman stood back and folded her hands over her mouth, worry colored her face.

'_No, no, no! What is this?!'_ Margaret tossed her legs over the edge of the bed and stared at them, wide eyed and dizzy. Her borrowed hands felt over her bare and knotted knees and she could feel the muscles twitch both inside and out. She stood and almost stumbled into the woman as they both stepped forward, one to help and the other out of fear. Margaret took a hold of the woman's shoulders and gave her a slight shake.

"What's happened to me? What am I?" Margaret cried. She let go and spun around the bed in search of a mirror, a glass, _anything_ to tell her the truth. There in the cozy corner of the bedroom she was in stood a long and thin polished mirror. Tripping over her ankles, Margaret caught the edge of the vanity mirror with her clumsy hands and peered into it.

A dumpy creature stood in front of the mirror. There was barely anything there that Margaret could see of herself in the thing. Her brown eyes remained, with the strange tilt to their edges that made her look angry when she wasn't, and her copper stained, muddy strands were loose and tangled down along her face and far lower to the small of her back.

"What…" A hand came up to the creature's face and the image gasped. Past the bruising and the welt that took up half of her forehead, the face was filled with heavy bones and a stern expression. Her cheekbones were dense and her chin far stronger than she remembered it being, even her nose came out just enough to be seen without crossing her eyes. Gone was her fair freckled face and it was replaced with a boulder carved by an amateur. "Oh my God, you're joking… what is this? What is this, seriously!" She stepped closer to the mirror and her gaze flickered over the surface, unbelieving.

The female in the image stood at no bigger than four feet or so, with a broad set of shoulders and an even broader set of hips. Her core was too close to the ground and her center of balance was nothing more than a spinning top about to lose its momentum. Margaret turned her face and another gash lined her sideburn and wiggled toward her jaw. Margaret blinked and glanced at the side of her face again, but her eyes soon closed and she shuddered to breathe painfully. _'Why in God's good name do I have _sideburns?_'_ Her hair appeared grown out and waved from the base of her ear and trickled toward her waist, but that wasn't the horrific part, oh no.

The edge of her jaw near the back where the bone met her throat, a small field of hair was there and it looked to her like the beginnings of a beard. _'Oh, no, no, hell no!'_ Margaret tugged at the small patch of _fur_ there and whined silently in the back of her throat. She jumped out of her skin when the woman's hand rested on her shoulder and her lovely face appeared next to Margaret's – _the creature's_ – upper arm. The woman soothed her with incomprehensible words and rubbed a tender palm against Margaret's back. Fresh tears pooled at the corner of her eyes and Margaret couldn't force the strength to stand back into her legs. She dropped and rolled onto the ground like a bag of potatoes.

_"Bella? Belladona, is she ill?"_ Belladonna looked over to her husband who stood at the entrance of the bedroom, his manners keeping him at bay in the presence of an unclothed female. Belladonna sighed and gently knelt next to the fallen dwarf and shook her head.

"_I do not know. I do not know if it was the sight of her injuries, or… or something else."_ Belladonna waved to her husband, _"Fetch me some of my newer clothes. They may yet be large enough for her to wear._" Hastily, Bungo nodded and removed himself with a sharp turn and retreated into the hallway. Belladonna returned her attention to the dwarf that had curled up on the guest bedroom's floor. She grimaced and brushed a handful of hair away from the girl's face. _"Oh, my dear, how I wish I could know your mind. Your words mean nothing to me. I wish I knew what I could do for you."_

Margaret felt her depression deepen as the couple conversed behind her curled form and anger settled in the dark parts of her stomach. "What's going _on_, please! I just… I want to go home! How did I get here, please… just let me go…" She knew it didn't matter what she said, though, as the couple either truly couldn't understand her, or had chosen to ignore her. Both notions brought more hot and frustrated tears to stream over the bridge of her nose and onto the ground she collapsed on, curled into the tightest ball she could manage with her new and hulking body. Good God, even her breasts were being a menace to her now of all times, giant lumps of stone that they had turned into! The pattering of feet came to her ears and the quick chatter of the couple was her only warning before the woman with the pointed ears tried to turn her onto her back.

For a brief and childish moment, Margaret stiffened and held herself in place, but the woman was going to have no more of her nonsense, it seemed, and tightened her tiny fist into Margaret's shoulder and _pulled._ Margaret relented more out of surprise at the sheer force the woman seemed to have rather than any politeness that finally graced her. She swallowed forcefully and blinked through her tears. The woman's lips were pressed into a mother's frown and the man behind her huddled close by with his hands fiddling at his sides.

A dress was placed into her vision and the woman commanded something with a small shake of her fist that held the dress. Margaret glanced between the woman and the dress and thought better of fighting her over it. _'She's pregnant, you rude asshole. Stand your ass up and mind your goddamn emotions.'_ Margaret coughed into her arm and rolled onto her rear-end before shakily taking a stand on feet-far-too-big. A small smile graced the woman's face and Margaret took a weird notice at how her pointed ears twitched. If her situation hadn't been so dire or horrifying, the action would have been strangely endearing.

"I'll… I'll wear the dress, I'm sorry." Margaret sniffed and took the clothing in her hands. The woman's smile turned sweet and she turned to tap the man's chest and pointed out the door. The man whose eyes had been riveted to the floor since Margaret had stood up, nodded and scooted along his heels to leave them in the room. Margaret felt her eyes go wide again when she spotted the hairy tops of enormous feet. "I guess I'm not the only one, then. That's good, right?" She turned to the woman and at the woman's confused smile; she sighed sadly and remembered, "right, communication issue. Goddamn it."

The woman held out her hands and cooed some soft words to Margaret in an attempt to coax her. Margaret sighed heavily and turned the cloth over in her hands, "This… this may not fit me, you know?" She _knew_ the pointed-eared woman couldn't understand a lick of what she was saying, but it was better than the silence between them. The woman gently herded Margaret toward the bed and cajoled her into the dress. Margaret grunted softly as the wide dress came over her head and settled on her shoulders. There was a giggle off to her right and Margaret glanced up in time to see an amused glitter pass through the woman's bright eyes before she hid it all behind a slender hand.

Margaret glanced down at herself and in the spur of such a moment, she chuckled in despite of her tear-stained face. She tugged at the sides of the dress and turned to the woman, giggling just as haltingly. "Yeah… I look, I look pretty fuckin' ridiculous, don't I?" The words felt good against her tongue and it gave Margaret a second to come down from her panic and fear. Margaret shook out her head and furiously rubbed her palms over her face as she turned and dropped onto the mattress. The poor bed squeaked and gave a small crack and for one disturbed moment, Margaret feared the thing would collapse. A second passed and she spared a glance at the woman, still stutteringly scared of breaking the bed.

The woman could only burst into laughter at the sight of Margaret's face.

…

The rest of the week was spent in completely frustration, both for her hosts and herself. Margaret had taken two days of rest before she managed to stand on her feet without swaying comically or skipping straight into a tumble and smashing her skull into a wall, or the floor, or on the rare occasion when she made it that far; the door. Communication was still at a null and void stage between her and the couple that housed her, but she managed. The woman and her could trade hand gestures such as 'food' or 'water' (which resulted in hot tea more often than not), as well as 'bath' and 'help.' Beyond those flimsy attempts, though, Margaret was left to have conversations with no one else but herself.

'_Which probably makes me seem right fuckin' crazy.'_

When she _did_ manage to leave the bedroom, she was in desperate need of the bathroom and a faltering half-charade passed between her and the man of the house. The woman picked up sooner than her partner and led Margaret to the bathroom. A deep, stone tub sat in the middle of the room and was surrounded by fluffy towels and a basin for smaller washing needs. It had all been very confusing and Margaret was left to wonder if she had honestly just died in that car-crash, or flat-out abducted by a weird occultist couple in a compound.

She very nearly believed the last part when she stepped outside for the first time since waking up. The shades of the grass that rolled along the tops of the hills were damn near painful to look at, and she held a hand to her eyes most of the time while she followed being the woman. She fumbled along in her trot like a six-year-old child and held onto the basket she was given with a death grip. Her new body was atrociously hard to control and every few minutes Margaret found herself bouncing into things and knocking them over, much to the dismay of her hostess and her passing neighbors.

The first order of business for the week had been clothing. As much as she appreciated the generosity of her hostess, Margaret couldn't stand how bloated she felt in the dress that was an _inch_ or two too small for her tank of a body. None of the other dresses worked, either, because it didn't matter how pregnant her hostess was, it didn't compare to the girth that Margaret now sported. At least she was able to make the mother-to-be laugh outright by imitating a bulging stomach and sore back. Small blessings, to be sure.

It was with this, though, that Margaret felt the first stirrings of alienation. Though her hostess was kind and lovingly sweet, her husband seem to stand truer to the feelings of the public, or at the very least, the immediate community that surrounded their home. The woman's husband was painfully polite and almost obnoxiously patient with his partner's quirks and pet projects (for example, Margaret's care and nursing), but that was usually as far as his good nature and humor extended. He wasn't outright rude to Margaret, but he didn't go out of his way to be friendly, either.

Their neighbors proved to be quite the same in cloth, if not color. Margaret found she bowed her head more and turned her gaze away quicker when she was in the market with her hostess. She was taller than all of them, by half a foot or more depending, and it pained her to hear the scoff or snuffing of their noses whenever she came along with the other woman to the market. By the end of the week, Margaret had had enough of the xenophobia and remained indoors more often when she could, but even then she was confined to the guest room.

The second week came along and her hostess grew worried, Margaret knew, but she couldn't bring herself to leave the room. The world outside the door had proven to be far too much too soon, and so she hid.

…

"You say you found her?" Gandalf inquired lightly. He shifted gently in the chair and fiddle with the cup of tea Belladonna had given him to drink. The young couple sat before him and on their shoulders he could see the weight of concern and confusion that drained their strength. Despite the summer sun that poured in from outside, the mood of the home was dank and dark.

"Aye, she was lying out beside the road halfway from Bree when we found her." Belladonna answered softly. Her fingers tightened around her mug and she fought against the need to grit her teeth. She could see that her husband's jaw was edged and it shifted with a small click. Belladonna shook her head and sighed, "She… appeared mangled, Gandalf. When I saw her, I feared she had been set upon by wolves and left for dead."

"That does, indeed, sound very upsetting. And you stopped for her?" Gandalf pressed with his bushy brow raised in curiosity. Though Belladonna seemed more earnest in her care for the newest addition to her home, Gandalf knew that Bungo was equally worried. It was in the pinch of his mouth and the twitch of his feet.

"Yes," Bungo answered now with a firm grip on his armrest, "we couldn't very well just leave her, even if she had been…" He waved his hand vaguely but did not utter the word. He grumbled and kept his gaze at the tip of Gandalf's beard. "She awoke when my wife had made it down the hill, and I believe her confusion won out. She was frantic at the sight of us."

"Indeed?" Gandalf peered toward the exit of the living area, toward the hall that led to the guest room.

Belladonna's gaze flickered to follow Gandalf's for a brief second, "We couldn't speak to each other. She… I do not know if it is the injury on her head, or perhaps a deeper fear, but the words that she does seem to say…" Belladonna shared a look with her husband and Bungo cleared his throat with a exasperated shake of his head.

"They just sound like gibberish." Bungo finished quietly. "Not in the sense of a child trying to emulate conversation, but rather with the intelligence of any adult. _She_ knows what she speaks, Gandalf, _we_ are failing to understand her. Or it is the other way around."

"Have you tried asking her to write for you? Or suppose another form of communicating?" Gandalf questioned. His brow furrowed deeply over his eyes when Bungo and Belladonna both shook their heads. Perhaps there was hope yet.

"We do not even know her name, Gandalf." Belladonna spoke sadly. She placed her mug away on a small table beside her and stood. "We attempted to, perhaps, jog some sense of memory or other by taking her out and allowing her to see the land, but she only grew more fearful and withdrew…" Belladonna gestured behind her toward the hallway. Her voice fluttered with worry when she turned back to Gandalf, "I only meant to help her, Gandalf, not harm her further."

"Hush, my dear friend, hush now." Gandalf stood and hunched over with a hand to Belladonna's slender shoulder. "I shall see to your guest and find an answer to this mystery of yours. She is a dwarf, you say?"

Belladonna nodded once, "Aye, but even that seemed to surprise her. She was alarmed by her appearance. I thought at first it was her injuries, but she looks upon her hands and feet, those uninjured, with dismay." Belladonna's hands rested on her swollen stomach and caressed the top absently. Gandalf nodded and bowed out of the living room to head toward the guest room.

Now more than ever, he wished to see this guest of theirs. The hallway took a winding turn deeper into the hill and the sunlight could not quite reach the end, but the candles flickered happily as he passed them. He found the door to the guest bedroom and knocked once, twice, and then waited. He could hear her from within, shifting and padding to the doorway. He stepped back and remained hunched, awaiting her appearance. There was a heartbeat's moment before the door knob was turned and the door whined open.

She was stout and sturdy, as were all her kind. Her shoulders dipped from her neck in a feminine slope not found in the males and her squared chin rose to bring her earthy eyes to his face. He offered her a smile and after a hesitation, she returned it. Her hair was at a great length and pulled tightly back in a messy tail, contained by two leather strips. She wore a long and patterned dress, but from the shift of her feet and the cast away gaze, she felt uncomfortable.

"Hello, my dear." He greeted her. The female dwarf raised her gaze back up to his face and in her eyes; he could see her acknowledgement and her intelligence. She understood his meaning, it seemed, for her low voice parroted his greeting in her language, but his words held no meaning for her. He sighed and gestured with an open palm to be allowed inside.

In this, she did not hesitate and stepped back with the door still in her hand to allow him entry. He shuffled inside, mindful of his cloak, and soon found a chair set up close to a darkened and quieted fireplace. He groaned as he sat and the female came toward him, her hands worrying together in front of her. She asked something of him but cut herself short and bit her bottom lip, her eyes closed in dispirited patience. He pointed to the bed and she sat with her face now colored in a blush, either embarrassed or relieved, he wasn't sure.

"Let us begin simply, shall we?" Gandalf murmured to her. The woman jerked her gaze up to his face at the sound of his voice and frowned with a tilt of her head. She shook her head heavily and with exasperation, spoke with a rapid breath. Perhaps she was explaining that she could not understand him, perhaps it was asking him to keep silent, in the end, it was only a low rumble of her voice.

Gandalf leaned forward in his chair and pointed to himself, "Gandalf." Then, with a heavy hand, he moved his fingers toward her and pointed, waiting a few seconds before returning his hand to his chest and repeating his name. A spark appeared in the depths of her eyes and their dullness faded. She grinned and sat forward on her bed, her hand at the base of her throat.

"_Marrgret."_ She replied with an eager face. She swallowed and paused and he could see that his name rolled in the back of her throat as she tested the sound. She nodded to herself and focused on his gaze, her lips slowly forming his name. _"Gaanelf."_

"Such strange pronunciations, my child, truly. Marrgret?" He asked, his fingers laced together to rest on his lap. The dwarf shook her head and pressed her lips against her tongue, concentrating.

She sighed and crossed her index fingers, using them to show the beats in her name. _"Maar. Gaar. Ret."_ The sounds were strange, but he could bring himself to pronounce them well enough. He murmured her name two or three times under his tongue before smiling at her.

"Margaret?" The smile that overcame her face set a beauty to her features that was hidden beneath her heavy bones and frowning lips. He chuckled deeply and steeped his fingers before his face. "Good, very good. Let us attempt mine once more. _Gan. Dalf._ Try, child."

The smile on her face flickered, but the corners of her mouth twisted with determination and he could see the hope flare up in the back of her eyes. _"Gandalf?_" He nodded his head and a wave of relief seemed to take a hold of her, so fiercely in fact, that she sprung from the bed and stumbled forward to wrap her arms around him. The hug was intense and Gandalf had quite forgotten how powerful dwarves could be, even unwittingly.

"It is a start, Margaret." Gandalf soothed into her hair as he felt her body shake with silent gasps. He would not go looking for tears; he could only imagine the fear and loneliness that plagued her. Gandalf gently caressed her shoulders and rocked her gently, giving comfort to the young dwarf.

"It's a very good start."

* * *

**Notes:** A bit fast pace, but hopefully the third one will finally get us rolling into the story. Reviews are welcome and appreciated!


	3. Understanding

**Chapter 3**

_Understanding_

* * *

Her scribbling was strange, that much was certain. Gandalf hadn't been entirely sure whether it was her head injury that had erased her memories and knowledge, or perhaps some deeper issue. He had managed to persuade her to leave the guest room and follow him into the living area where Belladonna and Bungo remained. Belladonna had smiled widely at the sight of the young dwarf and Gandalf was pleased to see that it only brought a sense of comfort to the young creature, rather than fear.

He eventually moved her to a desk and gently prodded Bungo to release some of his parchment and a quill. Though not necessarily rare to acquire, the materials were precious commodities that shouldn't be squandered at a whim. Even so, at his request, the hobbit fetched a short piece of parchment and a well-used quill and inkpot for the young dwarf to use. She had stared at him, a singular eyebrow raised in question, and Gandalf gently instructed her to write for him, as best she could.

She was unfamiliar with the use of a quill, he noticed at first glance. Her fingers fumbled with the delicate tool and twice she nearly toppled the inkpot onto her lap or over the desk. Her frustration mounted easily and she had very little patience for the tools given to her, but once more her lips pinched with resolve and she set her hand to work. It was a lengthy half within the hour before she managed to control her fingers and set the quill's tip to the parchment.

Patches of parchment were stained with blots of ink and her writing was shaky. He could not yet tell if it was her hands that she found cumbersome or the parchment, but she marched on and soon her hand unsteadily produced her words. The rest of the hour she spent writing away and he peered over her shoulder once or twice, much to her dismay, and the letters he found quite odd.

"What is that, Gandalf?" Belladonna question as she stood within the archway of her kitchen. She had taken to passing by now and again, leaving a cup of tea for both himself and the young dwarf, and had spied upon the young female's writing. "That language is not familiar to me, and I have read quite a bit!"

The young dwarf's gaze flickered up to Belladonna, curiosity in her eyes, but she continued to write, her hand becoming stronger with every word. Gandalf shook his head, "No, my dear woman, it is not a language that we possess."

"Could it be…" Bungo interrupted, "I do not know… perhaps just gibberish? Perhaps her mind is muddled and she now forgets her words?"

Gandalf shook his head again, "No, Bungo Baggins. I do not believe that she forgets herself. I see a pattern in her strange symbols. They repeat, and consistently. She is writing in a language she knows." Abruptly, the dwarf sighed heavily and set down her quill. Her heavy head turned and she muttered to them, her brow furrowed over her nose and her bottom lip protruding. He could not make her words, but he understood their meaning of _must you speak of me as if I am absent?_

"I do apologize, my good woman." Gandalf bowed his head and shifted in his chair to be closer to her desk. "I, we, did not mean to offend. Please, do continue." He reached out and tapped at her parchment to try and prompt her into continuing. The dwarf gave him a sour look and huffed, but returned to her writing. Gandalf chuckled and stood from his chair to move toward the kitchen. Hastily, Bungo removed a few of the dishes from the table and made room for the wizard.

"What shall we do, Gandalf?" Belladonna questioned him once he was seated. Her swollen belly gave little in the way of space, but she made due and sat as close to the dining table as she was able. Bungo placed a cup of warm milk next to his wife's elbow and soon took a seat next to her, his eyes sharp with worry.

"I do not rightly know at the moment." Gandalf pondered. "I could, I suppose, take her to Rivendell and ask for any guidance Lord Elrond could spare. Perhaps he would be better equipped to assess her mind and give her some relief."

"Would that be wise, though?" Belladonna pressed on, her lovely expression now coming down stern. "She is a dwarf, she may not remember much, but what if she does remember the bitterness that lies between her kin and the elves?"

"I do not think she does, remember, I mean." The wizard shook his head and tapped the table under his fingers. "Dwarves are a secretive and selective folk. They do not trust easily, nor are they willing to share their weaknesses or shortcomings with the public." He glanced over his shoulder and found that the female dwarf had stopped in her writing, her gaze now to them and her head tilted in her curiosity. "She acts as though she were kindred of Men or Elf, rather than a Dwarf."

"What are you saying, Gandalf?" Bungo drew the wizard's attention back to their bubble in the kitchen. "Are we mistaken? Is she not a dwarf?"

"That I cannot answer, her body is of a dwarf, and that we can all plainly see, but her mind? No. Her mind feels different, it is strange and harrowing. I am beginning to doubt that her blow to the head has caused this." Gandalf quieted as the heavy footsteps of their silent companion approached. A shadow passed over his shoulder and before him the dwarf placed her parchment. The length of it was filled with her words, the beginning looked as if a child had started, but toward the bottom there was only the strength of a steady and intelligent hand, only hindered by her tools.

"Look at this," Gandalf said wondrously, "A full length of a letter, and I believe she may have only stopped due to the length of the parchment."

"But we do not know what is says!" Bungo huffed with some annoyance. "What are we to do with that?"

"Perhaps we can teach her?" Belladonna suggested. She reached over and Gandalf happily allowed her to take the parchment from him. Belladonna's gaze swooped over the writing and she hummed thoughtfully, a curled finger to her chin. "Perhaps we can find some common ground. It is not hard to teach our small ones to speak… what is to say we cannot do so with her?"

The dwarf woman said something in a clipped tone and with a turn of her heel, slipped back into the living area and flopped down into her previous seat, her broad back to them. The chair creaked with worry under her weight and the soft mutterings of anger could be heard from within the room. Gandalf chuckled almost to himself, "That, there, also gives me reason to believe she may not be wholly comfortable in her body. I know dwarves to be powerful and unruly in their actions, but she stumbles about recklessly."

"She's upset. I cannot blame her. You said there have been no calls for missing dwarves from the Blue Mountains?" Belladonna lowered the pitch of her voice. She felt that part of the dwarf's depression had come from their conversation and her inability to participate with them.

"No, none that I have heard." Gandalf answered just as softly. "When I received your letter, I made inquiries, but no caravans have been lost, no travelers or groups have gone missing. I fear she is alone, for now."

Belladonna seemed to rear up like a snake poised to bite, "She is _not_ alone! We are here." Bungo made a strangled noise in his throat and his wife turned to him with a pained look. "My love, please, I know this is not proper or appropriate, especially with our child on the way… but we cannot turn her away. We found her… we must take up our responsibility for her."

Gandalf felt a swell of pride and love for his old friend, "Indeed, you may be right, Belladonna. She has nowhere else to go, and I fear taking her to travel to Imladris would be terribly irresponsible of me. Her anxieties at the moment are too great. She shall remain here, and when she is stable, I shall take her with me to Lord Elrond and his wisdom."

…

'_I like how they're treating me like I can't hear them now, either.'_ Margaret drummed her dense fingers against the desk and sighed. She could still hear their soft conversation, even over the shrill call of the birds outside and the sudden eruption of laughter from passing children. She glanced back toward the kitchen, but the other three were in a deep and hurried conversation. They wouldn't pay her any attention and she stood from the desk with a slight squeak from the chair. A single glance back told her that the others were still in conversation and she moved toward the window.

Her eyes watered as the light became too bright and the colors bled into her vision. Tears collected at the edges of her eyes and she winced with a hand that came up to rub at the soreness that assaulted her eyeballs. _'What's wrong with my eyes? Why does everything look so saturated?'_ She blinked away some of the water and felt a tear or two go down her cheek, but she wiped it away absently. She leaned her forehead against the window and sighed. _'I want to go home. I don't even know where the hell I am, but I'll walk to the edges of wherever the fuck it is just to… to what?'_

A thick swallow lodged in her throat and she glanced down with her gaze and followed the wooden grain of the windowsill. _'Where am I supposed to go? This could be anywhere… and how did I even get here from my home city? There's nothing like this even remotely nearby.'_ She entertained the vague and thoughtful theory that she may have died and this was a weird sort of heaven (or hell, perhaps?) but her body ached far too frequently and her pain was not torturous, just bothersome and fleetingly.

She brought a hand to rest on the window's ledge and she sighed as she turned the limb over and over. _'And what's wrong with me? Why do I look like this? Couldn't I have at least looked like them?'_ Her muddy gaze flickered over toward the kitchen, to the small creatures that were her new hosts. _'That would have made this somewhat easier… now I'm just a fuckin' freak of nature. I feel like a beached whale, goddamn.'_ Her gaze came up again at the sound of shuffled footsteps and the old man was making his way toward her. Hastily, Margaret bumbled about around the edge of her desk and thumped into her desk chair with a creak of wood.

The old man spoke to her once he had taken a seat across from her, the two other pointed-eared creatures just behind him. The man's lips were tight on his face and his chin quivered, but his wife stood with a rod through her spine and a fierce light in her eyes and Margaret feared the determination behind that gaze. The old man handed her letter back to her and Margaret couldn't stop the snort that escaped her, _'go figure he wouldn't be able to read it. There goes that hope.'_ Listlessly, she tossed the paper onto the desk and watched as it twirled before landing. The old man huffed at her and his voice turned lecturing.

Margaret blinked and shrunk into her shoulders slight before she took up the piece of paper again. _'Alright, that was clearly not what I was supposed to do, shit.'_ Instead, the woman came around and Margaret instantly felt herself shrink as the orbit of the woman's stomach was within range of her personal bubble. Margaret's gaze found the woman's face and there was a smile that greeted her.

"_Bell. A. Dunna."_ The woman announced with a thumb to her chest. Margaret blinked absently for a few seconds before she flailed in realization. '_She's giving you her name, idiot!'_

"Margaret!" She replied stupidly, a few seconds too late and with a frog's yodel for her volume. "Ah, shit that was loud, sorry. Ahem." Margaret coughed and cleared her throat with a swallow before she tried again, this time with her voice much softer and less like a wailing amphibian. "_Margaret._ Bell… Belladonna?"

The woman beamed and nodded before shooting off into a verbal slur of something or other that was too fast and too much gibberish for Margaret to understand. With a laugh, Margaret held up her hands and waved them frantically, "Woah! Woah, easy, one… one word at a time. Hand gestures, c'mon, woman." She laughed again and flickered her fingers between them, "Cut me some slack here, a'right?"

The man said something from behind Belladonna and it brought a spark of twisted sarcasm to Belladonna's face. It was such an odd expression, a set of exasperation that furrowed her brows and made her lips tick into half a grimace and smile. Margaret could only laugh at the sight. The woman, Belladonna, now muttered something and her gaze was focused on Margaret, an eyebrow raised and a hand on her hip.

'… _She's joking with me.'_ Even though she couldn't possibly know what the woman – _Belladonna_ – had been saying, the fact that she had tried to include Margaret on the joke had been touching enough to spring tears into her eyes. Margaret gave her a watery and shuddering smile and shrugged her shoulders with her hands out, "Sorry, lady friend, I've got nothing for you."

Belladonna rolled her eyes and smacked the side of Margaret's head, laughing.

…

_Westron. _That's what Belladonna said the language was, or what most called it in their part of the world. It had been a long and grueling month, with Belladonna being an almost unbearably unforgiving teacher. The start had been small, with Belladonna repeating words for things Margaret asked for, looked at, or picked up. The woman absolutely refused to speak to Margaret unless a phrase or a word was repeated first, and only correctly. Multiple times throughout the first month Margaret found their arguments at toe's end with the smaller woman, annoyed and frustrated at the hard pushing and shoving to learn the language.

"You know this is just ridiculous, you hormonal – augh, _what!_" Margaret growled when she noticed Belladonna had once again gone blank in the face and raised an eyebrow at her. "_What_ now, honestly?" The garden around them seemed to giggle in the summer's breeze and a few leaves fluttered between them, as if to ease the impending spitting match.

"_Again._" Belladonna repeated in Westron, one of the few words Margaret knew with painful familiarity. Her garden work was left forgotten in her lap and the tomatoes were just about to roll out from her hands. Belladonna's belly took up most of her laugh and the sight of rolling tomatoes would have been comical, if not for Margaret's frustration.

Margaret snorted and repeated through gritted teeth. "_What. Is. You. Want._"

"_No._" Belladonna reprimanded. "_Yes, what would you like?_"

"I don't know any of those words, you crazy lady!" Margaret snapped with a hand to her forehead. "God Almighty, just strike me down, _please_, for the love of your own son." Belladonna cleared her throat and raised not one, but both of her eyebrows at Margaret. With a heavy sigh and a toss of her head to jab her chin into her collarbone, Margaret replied with a grumble and repeated Belladonna's punctuation and pronouncement.

"_Good._" Belladonna replied with a smile and her hands reached out for the tomatoes. "_Yes, what would you like._"

"_Yes,_ _Belladonna, what… would you like. Like?_" Margaret questioned with a thick voice, tired and frustrated with her lack of any real progress. Belladonna nodded again with her hands cupped around the ripe tomatoes that had made for a quick escape.

"_Please,_" Belladonna continued slowly with a finger pointed at a small shovel next to Margaret, "_may you hand me the shovel?_" Though to Margaret, the sentence had sounded more along the lines of 'please, may, hand, something-something' but she could understand the general gist of what Belladonna had been asking for and quickly retrieved the small hand-tool for the woman.

They worked peacefully in the garden, side by side and sharing the tools between them. It was the first time in a month and a half since her unexpected arrival into _The Shire_ (Belladonna had struggled to teach her that string of words) that she had been outside for more than an hour or two. Their neighbors were well down the row from them, so it gave Margaret some sense of privacy while outside.

Her lessons weren't easy. Throughout the day Belladonna would drill her on singular words, items around the house and the like. In the evening, Bungo would assist so that his wife could rest with her swollen belly. He had focused more on verbs and adjectives, but Margaret was well past English 101 mentality, and the lessons would leave her with stinging headaches.

"_Margaret._" Belladonna interrupted her thoughts. Margaret's head shot up at her name and she blinked from the slight blur it caused to her vision. She inclined her head and glanced around Belladonna, but could see nothing to indicate the woman had asked her for something.

"_Yes… ma'am?_" Margaret replied with the tiniest bit of confusion.

"_Gandalf will be visiting again today._" Belladonna smiled lightly and sighed. "_Today or tomorrow, I believe he wishes to take you to Rivendell._"

Margaret blinked again, confused mightily. "_To-day or… or after? Is where?_" She had only managed a small fraction of Belladonna's words, that the old man (or wizard, the hobbits called him, of all things) was arriving at some point, but the rest of it was lost to the wind. _'He's going where with what? What?'_

Belladonna bit her lip, _"Gandalf. Will take you. To see the elves._"

"Now you're shitting me," Margaret grumbled, "Wizards and hobbits… dwarves, you tell me, and now elves? No. _No_, fuck that. That shit ends here." Margaret huffed and swiped at the tools that sat in her lap. Angrily, she ripped herself up from the ground and growled as she nearly tripped down as her bare feet snagged on her skirt.

"_Margaret,_" Belladonna tried to soothe her, but Margaret snapped at her before she could continue, a finger held up accusingly and her eyes narrowed on the pregnant woman as she regained her footing and stood like a tower over the smaller female.

"_No_, _Belladonna._" Margaret hissed. "_Enough. I is enough. No more. No more… not truth!"_

"_Lies._" Belladonna supplied her with a tight voice. The older woman had her lips pressed tightly into a pale line across her face and Margaret was certain the only reason the woman was not up and in her face was because of her stomach that sank her like a stone. "_I am not lying to you, child._"

"_Yes you is!_" God, Margaret hissed to herself in the back of her mind, she must have sounded like a damn barbarian with the way her words slurred and crashed together. None of her sentences came with the fluidity and practice that Belladonna spoke with, none of them held the same grace or slender taste on the tongue. It only served to infuriate her.

"_Why would you think I'm lying to you?_" Belladonna questioned her. All the good it did, Margaret could still only catch every other word, and even then only if it was a simple adjective or verb. 'Why-you-think-lying-you' sounded more accurate to Margaret's muddled brain.

"_Elves!_" Margaret nearly shouted. She could hear the door as it opened from the front of the house. She was probably loud enough for Bungo to grow concerned. The idea that he was worried for his little wife forced Margaret to wrap up her anger and she hauled it in with a struggle. Why was her temper so volatile? '_I wasn't this aggressive back home, even on the debate team, I still controlled my temper!_'

Belladonna was still seated in front of her and the woman held her chin high and her hands folded in her lap. The small creature looked to be fearless, but Margaret knew better. Belladonna had warned her when they first started communicating that Margaret's new body was far stronger than any strength a hobbit could possibly muster.

Margaret felt her gaze shift down to Belladonna's belly, the female had one hand wrapped along the underside of her stomach and never shifted under Margaret's stare. Shame struck her, then, and Margaret could feel icy fingers curl over her neck and she shuddered. She bowed her head and murmured sadly to Belladonna, "_I sorry. No pain. No hurt. I is angry, Belladonna._"

"_I know you are, my dear._" Belladonna gave her the smallest of smiles and held up a hand when Bungo stepped in behind Margaret. The hobbit stopped, but his hands were wrapped tightly together and twisted hard enough to turn his palms red. "_Help me, Margaret._"

Instantly, Margaret held out her hands to take Belladonna's, "Maggie._ Mag. Gee._"

"_Help me, Maggie._"

…

"You say she's been temperamental?" Gandalf asked quietly so as not to disturb Bungo in his lesson with their dwarf charge. Belladonna sipped at her drink carefully, her eyes elsewhere in the living area, the only indication he had that his friend was taking consideration with her words.

"Not necessarily. Yes, she has a temper, but she isn't completely… unruly." Belladonna explained politely. She settled her cup of tea on the sauce that rested at the top of her belly and she sighed. "She confused. She's mentioned several times that she's unfamiliar with… things."

"What things, my dear?" Gandalf pressed gently. He had hoped that the young dwarf's strange mannerisms would have made her a unique and palatable house guest to the hobbits. Her qualities appeared nothing like those of her kin, but to listen to his friend now, it seemed the dwarf was, indeed, a dwarf.

Belladonna shrugged lightly. "She's unfamiliar with the races, Gandalf. It was a shock to her to know that there were others who looked like her. She found the concept of hobbits strange, and when I mentioned _elves_, well, she nearly had a fit right outside in the garden." The mother-to-be had her gaze focused on the glittering light of the fireplace before them and there was a short laugh that came from Bungo in the kitchen as the young dwarf cheered over something.

"But," Belladonna smiled over her shoulder, "for all that bothers her, she has been a most charming and honest companion." Belladonna turned back to Gandalf and worry came over her sweet features. "Must you take her to Rivendell? I am one for adventure and the wild outdoors, my friend, but I fear…"

"You do not think she is ready." Gandalf stated with a nod of his head. Belladonna shook her head in quiet reply and Gandalf sighed with a palm that tapped at the head of his armrest. "Ah, Belladonna Baggins, I see that motherhood is setting upon you. I had hoped that she would travel with me, but I can see by your face that you think it unwise."

"I do, Gandalf. In most matters, I defer to your judgment, but in this, I must protest." Belladonna said firmly with her brow furrowed over her eyes and her mouth in a frown. "Give us a bit more time with her. You can see she is comfortable with us. I do not think it would benefit her to have her… open up to us, only to take her away and place her in another unknown."

Gandalf nodded again with his eyes closed and his lips in a twitch. "I suppose you are right. She is naught more than a child to her kind. Perhaps what you say is our best course of action."

"Thank you, Gandalf." Belladonna relaxed in her chair and then grinned as another cheer of triumph came from the kitchen. The woman giggled into her hand and Gandalf could only shake his head at the antics of the young dwarf.

* * *

**Notes: **One step forward, and another back. Hopefully by next chapter, we'll get our dwarf out of Hobbiton!


	4. Hesitance

**Chapter Four**

_Hesitance_

* * *

She had avoided traveling with the old wizard. She thanked whatever higher power had been listening to her silent pleas. Maggie wasn't sure how she would have attempted it, it had already been more than a month since she had been unceremoniously dropped into this new world and it just _would not_ _do_ to go traveling with an older gentlemen (no matter how congenial he was) when it was almost _that time._

Sure enough, it hadn't been a handful of days more after Gandalf had left that she woke up one early morning to find herself gripped with the sudden sensation of _drip._ With a panicked flail, Maggie rocketed from the guest bed and clamped a heavy hand to her crotch with a wince. Hurriedly, she hobbled her way toward the door and scampered down the hall toward the bathroom. She nearly came to grief with fear when she spotted Bungo coming down the hallway and promptly shut the door right behind her as he turned.

'_I'm fucked,'_ Maggie growled as she rested against the door and found that her hand was coated with blood. _'Royally fucked. Christ, you think that the-powers-that-be could have left this part out? I'm not going to be reproducing looking like this!'_ She quickly rushed to the basin just in front of a small mirror and rinsed off her hands. _'Now, what am I going to do about this? I've been able to deal with the cramps… as a human, but what if being this thing is different?'_ Maggie swallowed and became alarmed by the idea. Everything she felt more intensely, now, much more keenly and the emotions struck her to her core.

"Do I ask Bella?" She murmured to the mirror in front of her. "I mean… she's pregnant, she's gone through this, right? We're both females… yeah. I'll… I'll ask her." Another thick swallow and Maggie braced her hands on the counter that the basin and pitcher rested on with a shake of her head. She could feel the stirrings of a cramp start to grip the small of her back and she growled with a glare at her reflection. The creature in the mirror matched her gaze and winced.

"And this thing, God…" Maggie reached up and ran her blunt fingers over her beard. The brown beard edged along her face and slowly started to trace her jawline. _Dwarves,_ Gandalf had explained, grew a lot of thick hair, _everywhere_. When she had first asked for a razor or something to take it all off, Bungo had hesitated, for more than one reason.

Much to his amusement, Gandalf then informed her that male hobbits, even the _females_, didn't need any shaving blades because the only hair they had was on their heads and _feet_. There was nothing else, not their legs, not the arms, back, neck, or even the small patches that even human women had on their upper lips. _Nothing._ They only needed a small set of scissors to trim the hair on their heads and maybe the hair on their feet.

Dwarves, apparently, valued their thick hair and long beards, even on the females. It made Maggie shiver with discomfort. She couldn't even stand stubble on a man's face back home, lest of all on _her_ face. Gandalf had warned her, though, that to shave off what little of a beard she _did_ have would be a shameful practice and would only alienate her more.

"Not like I'll ever come across another dwarf, though." She murmured quietly as she washed off her hands again and glanced about the bathroom. She would have to find a way to deal with her monthly visitor in some form. Clothing was already a hard thing to come by. Belladonna had fashioned a few of her maternity dresses for her, but other things like undergarments and anything resembling a shoe were out of the question. She had two or three undergarments (one currently ruined) and a few dresses.

A wash cloth would have to do.

…

After her makeshift solution was wrapped into place, she hurried into the kitchen to find Belladonna set about to make breakfast. The hobbit female smiled in the way of greeting but once she saw the mortification on Maggie's face, she wiped her hands on her slipping apron and leaned over to place a hand on Maggie's arm.

"_What is wrong?_" Belladonna enunciated carefully for Maggie.

"_Belladonna, I is…_" Of all the words she knew, it figured that _this_ wasn't one that she had yet learned. Her face twisted and she glanced down at her feet. '_How in the seven pits of hell do I explain to her a monthly cycle in my limited vocabulary? How do you even begin to _mime _that without having it be mistaken for something else? Oh God, why._' Irritated that her language barrier once more confounded her, Maggie sighed and dropped her hands in defeat.

In the end, she dragged the very confused mother-to-be toward the bathroom and pointed to the ruined undergarment. Belladonna sparked into action and cooed softly to Maggie, as if she had been twelve years old again with her first time experience. In reality, Maggie was twenty-two years old, but it was the first time suffering such a thing in a body not hers.

It wasn't long before the mess was cleaned and Maggie was given a new set of undergarments, along with a few strips of cloth as a set to help with the capture of said nuisance. '_What wouldn't I give for a tampon, or hell, even just a pad? I have to wash this… this is just a nightmare._' But given that Belladonna hadn't laughed at her and had only gone about her business with a grim face made Maggie very grateful.

Belladonna returned to the kitchen with Maggie in tow and Bungo was very confused as to why he was suddenly shooed from his place at the table, his cup of tea and a plate of his biscuits in his hand. He grumbled, but at a snap glare from his wife, he disappeared with alacrity. Maggie was placed at the table and Belladonna gave her a steaming cup of some odd smelling tea and slice of toast.

"_Drink. For pain._" Belladonna explained at Maggie's furrowed brow. Maggie dropped her mouth open in realization and profusely thanked the other woman for her forethought. Eagerly, the new dwarf swallowed her tea (despite the horrific after-taste that scorched her throat) and hoped it hadn't been too late to waylay the pain of her oncoming cramps. Maggie sighed with relief and noticed from the corner of her eye that Belladonna looked at her strangely. She turned to the other woman with a raised brow and waited.

Belladonna bit her lip and a finger tapped her chin, but whatever had been on her mind was waved away with a slender hand and she murmured something incomprehensible to Maggie.

Maggie could only blink in confusion as the woman went back to breakfast.

…

It was just the middle of June, Maggie figured out. It was a few months ahead of her season when she was first 'abducted,' as she coined it, but it didn't matter, her birthday was still in the winter and well enough away that she wouldn't have to be concerned about mentioning it to anyone. What she _had_ found out was that Belladonna was only four months away from being due. The thought terrified Maggie, because it was learning that the birthing was going to happen _at the home_ that froze the blood in her body.

For the next couple of weeks, Maggie could only feel panic at the sight of Bella's bulging belly and nightmares plagued her sleep. There were midwives (that was a new and complicated word she had to learn), and on occasion an apothecary that would sweep through the hills and homes to check on the residents (and meeting Maggie for the first time had been a hardship and a half, because who knew there weren't that many dwarves beyond the Blue Mountains? Wherever the hell that was) but that didn't change the fact that there was still a lot of modern medicine that she was accustomed to and _expected_ that _just wasn't there._

What if she got a cold? She was surrounded by hobbits and true, perhaps they weren't that different (hell, Bella even managed to explain that dwarves were _heartier_) from each other, but that still didn't keep Maggie's worries at bay. Anything could take to infection, a cut (because it wasn't often someone washed their hands), a broken bone (no aesthesia) or what about an internal injury for that matter?

'_Do we just roll over and die and accept our fate for things like that?'_ The thought made her shudder and she prayed she'd never get anything worse than allergies and a scraped knee (she would gladly and openly admit any cowardice _just_ to avoid a fight, thank you very much). She was glad to see, though, that the lot she had ended up with – even if they weren't _her kin_ – was a peaceful and mildly passive-aggressive bunch.

Belladonna and her temper excluded.

It was well into her third month with the Baggins' (July, if she recalled correctly) that life seemed to finally find its rhythm with her. Her language still suffered, but the immersion was a great assistance, especially when even Bungo picked up his wife's attitude of 'we're-not-talking-until-you-repeat-what-I-say-now-say-it' routine.

Once the other hobbits in the surrounding homes and market place had gotten over their strange new resident (not only because Maggie was a dwarf, but because she was also a dwarf with no shoes and only three dresses) they would also stick their noses into teaching her, or giving Bungo and Bella the best methods to teach Maggie, or even better, give her mountains of children's books to read from (and if she hadn't desperately needed them to learn, Maggie would have been horribly embarrassed).

Hell, at one point Maggie had even been left with a handful of young hobbits, much to her distress.

The summer sun was well overhead and the shade of the giant oak tree in the middle of the large field was a blessing. Maggie was at the base of it and in the middle of a herd of giggling and screaming children. A few of the young hobbits had corralled her in the center and she was a playful decoration to the other, more daring children. Maggie did her best to ignore the scalding looks from passing older hobbits and instead focused on listening to the chattering young creatures around her.

"_Miss Ma-gee!_" One of them cried and soon Maggie found her arms stuffed with a bundle of curls and frilly cloth. The little female was and colorful as a rainbow and her smile was just as bright. As much as she disliked the adults and their alienation, Maggie couldn't help but completely melt with the presence of one of the children. '_Innocence or ignorance of the unknown, I suppose,_' Maggie wondered as the little girl in her arms bounced from her lap and bolted into a run from her friends.

She found it easier to communicate with the children, too. It had bothered her at first when she suddenly realized that she wasn't missing every-other-word that the children spoke, but rather she could follow whole _sentences_ and conversations with little trouble. She smacked her temple over it later on when she figured out _why._ '_Of course I can follow. Their sentences aren't complicated. Their vocabulary is as limited as mine._' She wasn't sure if that was a relief or not, but the children always made her forget of her shortcomings. They didn't see a dwarf, or a mute, or even just a struggling mentally-handicapped-female. They just saw a new friend who was strong enough to lift them clear over her shoulders and make them fly.

But that was how her days had passed, for the most part. A sense of peace and the groove of a gentle current led her along. It was easier to immerse herself in the bright and vibrant life of The Shire than to find herself in nightmares of her life before the accident. Flashes of her mother and brothers would come to mind, late at night, and her pillow was probably going to grow mold from the amount of tears she cried into it. She stayed up late and woke up early to avoid the nightly terrors and the vicious memories of all the things she had left behind.

Belladonna and Bungo could only soothe her with tea and biscuits on those nights, having no idea what plagued her or how to comfort her. But then, as the days went on and her sudden appearance was nothing more than a faint story in the Green Dragon, Maggie found herself forgotten amongst the folds of the community. Hobbits were a distrustful people, at least with outsiders and "Big Folk" (and that translation had her laughing for hours), but once they had come to terms with the foreign body, a person was as good as adopted.

The family trees were absolutely _no joke_ with Hobbits, Maggie had come to realize.

Weekly, she would follow Bella into the market and due to her strength Maggie was often the one laden with baskets of supplies, not that she would have allowed Bella to lift even a single one with consideration to her condition. Soon her wardrobe grew from three dresses to five, from only a few undergarments to one for every day, and then the only problem that remained was the lack of shoes. That had been difficult to get over, Maggie would admit, as she couldn't recall a time after she had turned eight years old that hadn't worn shoes ('_shit, even flip-flops_,' she reminisced).

Hobbits didn't wear shoes, Maggie learned. They didn't even have a shoe-maker, or a cobbler, or whatever the hell they were called in _Y Ole Days_ of long past (in her world, at least). There was absolutely no need for a Hobbit to wear shoes. The soles of their feet were thick and sturdy, heels that were calloused hard enough to put a hammer to shame, and their toes were strong and could grip just as good as their hands could.

Maggie's feet, on the other hand, were long and heavy and much too thick to be anything less than a small barge. She had even compared her feet next to Bungo's, out of curiosity; and bless the hobbit for his patience with all the strange things Maggie would request of him. "All in the name of learning," Bungo would grumble before releasing himself to Maggie in the name of science and experimentation.

The summer days were long and sweet and little by little, though she couldn't escape the nightmares and panic that would grip her from her life before, Maggie found a small place in the warmth of Bag End between the two watchful gazes and the patient teachings of her hobbit companions.

…

August rolled around and the world outside the hobbit hole home started to change. It was gradual and graceful and Maggie had to constantly remind herself to close her mouth before the flies found it. The leaves turned into gold and the rolling hills became waves of copper and sparkling sunlight. Even as the twilight and deep nights took their turns, the land was washed in a steady sea of midnight.

Maggie, due to her nightmares, found herself outside after the sun set most days. The Baggins' had protested at first ("No proper young lady steps out after dark!" Bungo scolded her), but had relented when she admitted that her nightly walks eased her mind and lifted her spirits. She couldn't rightly explain to them what it was about the darkness that soothed her, only that it did. Her headaches were less when the sunlight was gone and the moon was a smooth companion over her shoulder.

She never went too far, only down the hill or up by the grand oak tree. She carried a few candles and a book or two with her when she left Bag End. She would find herself in the curling shade of the tree or a hill and would light her candles to study her words and numbers. It helped her, somewhat, to become removed from the life she lived now and the one she had left behind. A small journal was also her companion, and in it (much to her amusement) was a mixture of English and Westron, doodles and references that no native could understand.

It became a sort of therapy for her. There hadn't been much that she left behind. A cat, long and sleek and lovely; and a fish whose half-moon frills were smothered in red and blues. An absent mother that lived halfway across the country most of the year (and in the basement the rest of it), and a brother who was more concerned with collection of alcohol than the little sister he had left alone.

A few blotches of water had hit her journal before she realized she was crying. Maggie bit her lip to keep it from trembling and swallowed thickly to help her lungs breathe. '_How is it I seem to have a better life here with _strangers_ than I did with a family who knew me?_' Her mother must have loved her, must have. She was fed and clothed and housed for most of her life, and it was only when she had just started college a few months ago… that she noticed how quickly the distance grew between them.

'_Bella's been more of a mom to me than my own flesh and blood._' There was no reason for it, either. To look back on her months with the poor hobbits who had found her, Maggie had been nothing more than an infuriating, emotional wreck of a guest. Even Bungo had been hard-pressed to be polite to her in her worst moments with him.

But Belladonna had been nothing if not a stalwart presence, a comforting hug, or a wall of unyielding determination. There was no reason for them to allow her to stay. No obligation or promises kept them together. No blood shared between them to explain why they would share their home with her, a stranger, a straggler, _a dwarf._ Not even kin in this new life of hers, and yet the pair of them had taken on her well-being with stiff chins and ready hands.

More tears spilled down her face and cooled in the night's breeze. Maggie reached up and wiped them away, but more only followed. '_Are they all like this? Or just these two?_' Whatever grace had decided to drop Maggie's heap of a body into Belladonna and Bungo's lap must have seen something in them.

Or maybe it was just chance.

Maybe it was a fluke.

'_No._' Maggie gripped her journal with fear. '_It's gotta mean something. I – people don't just disappear into thin air and arrive in a new world with no rhythm or reason… do they?_' How would she know, in any case? It's not as if anyone had returned from such journeys into the beyond. Maggie blinked to clear her vision, the sharp night coming into focus, and she smiled.

"If the world they fall into looks like this," she murmured to herself and collected her things, "why would they want to come back at all?"

* * *

**Notes:** Once again, we've traveled nowhere, but I hope I've given you a small look into her character and where she's going now. Please review!


	5. Incoming

**Chapter Five**

_Incoming_

* * *

Laundry day was always a hated day for Maggie. There was no machinery to set up and walk away from, and no means to make any part of the job easier. She sat at the river's edge with a few of the other hobbit women, all of them with their baskets of clothing in various stages of routine cleaning. In front of her was a stone that was half-dipped into the river's gentle current, beside her a basket with soiled clothes and then to her other side a row of chatting females.

It was almost a strange comfort to listen to them. Maggie really couldn't follow their conversations. They either spoke far too quickly or kept their voices hushed. They ignored Maggie for the most part once they realized she couldn't participate in anything they asked of her. The women would sing or gossip, loud cackles would escape them at something funny, and on the rare occasion a stone or two was tossed at one another.

'_For all that they preach on being proper and respectable, they act like school girls._' Not that Maggie minded since it was definitely entertaining to watch the women allow their cares to drift away in the water. Their hands worked quickly on their bundles and Maggie could only struggle alongside them like an infant learning to walk. The stone helped a little, but there was only so much that she could do to clean out Bella's maternity clothes or Bungo's gardening pants.

Belladonna wouldn't even lend her a bar of soap and explained that to use such a thing on a basket of clothes was wasteful (Maggie still cringed, even months later, at the thought of no soap for clothes). It was only until Maggie had actually seen the crystal clear waters that ran through the rivers that she relented in her protesting. '_And maybe parasites aren't a thing?_' She wouldn't fool herself over that one. Soon enough, the early morning sun had dragged itself through the sky to noon and Maggie's load was finished long after the other ladies had departed.

The first few times she had offered to do laundry, she had struggled with her bulk and the bulk of the basket. Her knees would continually get in the way and knock the damn thing out of her hands, or her hips would be too big to securely rest the weaved monstrosity upon them, or even better – her arms jutted out from her side and she looked to be carrying a wheel-barrel rather than a basket. In the end, she had settled for a method she had seen on the cultural show back at home.

Funnily enough, the basket rested quite comfortably at the top of her head. She was even getting better at walking up the road without using her hands to hold it steady. Of course, such a method got her some odd looks from a few (_everyone_) of the passing hobbits and neighbors. Bungo shook his head at the sight of it whenever she did arrive back from the river with the basket on her head, but Belladonna would only laugh.

"Dwarves must use their hard heads for something, I suppose!" The mother-to-be would tease. It was the least she could do, though. Maggie had no skill for gardening, even if she could remember the names of the plants and herbs. She had no skill for carpentry or for stonework (which got her even more odd looks from the hobbits) and she could barely use her hands to write in her journal. Laundry, dishes, and house cleaning were approachable and attainable goals. Besides, Bag End was _enormous_ and gave Maggie plenty to do on the slow days when Bella's ankles got the best of her and Bungo was out into town.

The newly washed clothes were set up to dry on a strong cord of straw and wool set between two deep-dug posts. The afternoon breeze was gentle and would dry the clothes in no time, and then she could retrieve them and start to fold and put them away. It wasn't the life she had envisioned for herself when she escaped her home and went away to college (to be fair, there was a lot more modern technology involved and not so much menial work), but it was steadily becoming an acceptable one.

'_Now if I could only do without the beard._' Belladonna and Bungo had made it clear that they knew very little of the dwarves' culture and they took their cues from Gandalf. They had their own language, history, and cultural respects, but because they were such a secretive people, even Gandalf was hard pressed to share anything with her.

_("You are lovely, my dear." Gandalf set his cup down on his saucer and smiled at her amicably. "For a dwarrowdam, you are quite fetching." _

"_What is word?" Maggie asked around her chuck of roast. She swallowed thickly and blushed hotly when Gandalf only chuckled at her display of bad manners. It had been a long day and she had missed breakfast and lunch, much to Bella's horror. _

"_Fetching. Fetch. Ing. You are… hm." He paused and brought a gnarled hand to his face, smoothing his fingers down the sides of his cheeks and to the tip of his chin. "Lovely. Your beard is coming in nicely and you look like a sturdy boulder."_

_Maggie blinked, "Did you… I am rock?" _'Did he really just call me a rock? I look like a _rock_?'_ Gandalf's rumbling laughter echoed through the hallow kitchen and he shook his head at her. His hand left his face and reached for hers that was forgotten beside her plate._

"_For dwarves, my dear, your features are acceptable." Gandalf left it at that.)_

"Rock my ass… old fart." Maggie muttered with bitter amusement. Really, the old wizard wasn't so bad. He visited on occasion and spent his hours with Belladonna more than Bungo. The male hobbit wasn't annoyed by the wizard's visitations per say, but he made no effort to openly participate in Bella's questioning of faraway places and the wonders of the world. Bungo was very much a homebody and enjoyed the seclusion of his home and the warmth of his hearths.

Belladonna, to Maggie's amusement and wary curiosity, was very much a _party girl_ or as much as one could be in this type of world. She loved stories, adventure, trinkets that Gandalf returned with for her, old books and new maps. It broke Maggie's heart sometimes, because she caught Bella staring out through the living area's window with a distant gaze and a faint smile on her pretty face from time to time. It was no hard thing for Maggie to imagine the little creature out in the muddle, running for all she was worth through the forest and grinning like a mad fool.

'_Since when did I start using phrases like that? Mad fool. God, I've lost it._'

On occasions like that, Maggie couldn't help the drift of her gaze to Belladonna's now-near-bursting stomach. It was all at once and then not at all that Bella appear to be ready for motherhood. A spirit like Bella's was hard to tame and even in marriage, her husband held no control over her fire-starter nature. Maggie wondered what the child would do to her and fear would creep into her mind.

Would Belladonna be like Maggie's own mother? A life cut short for motherhood and children? Would the child create a bridge too long for Bella to cross and be who she is without sacrificing her life or the life of her child? Would emotional distance become an issue? Would the child be lonely? Would they feel like they had taken something special from their mother and could only watch her rot away?

Maggie hesitated with a shirt in her hand and it slipped from the swaying rope with the rest of the clothes. She took a moment to turn back and glanced over her shoulder at Bella behind her as the woman worked in her garden, the flowers praying in the breeze around her and her voice in a quiet hum of contentment and peace. Maggie swallowed and went back to the laundry in her grip, her eyes shut against the tears that suddenly sprang into her eyes.

'_She won't be like that. There's too much of _something_ in her to be like that…_'

…

"_Maggie_."

The dwarf came up with a start and grunted with surprise as she peeled away a piece of parchment that stuck to her face. Maggie gave a hard blink and pressed her blunt thumb and index into the corner of her eyes near the bridge of her nose. She nearly poked too hard into her eyeball and it watered with warning. Maggie cleared her throat and looked around the darkened living area and tittered on the edge of her bench.

"Bella?" Maggie croaked. The room was dark and the fire was low. Night had fallen while she dozed at her desk over her journal. Maggie blinked again and put a fist to her eyes as she turned on her seat. Belladonna stood at the mouth of the hallway and seemed to be hunched over with her hand at the bottom of her stomach.

Suddenly, Maggie was painfully awake.

"_Bella,_" her words were clearer and she stumbled up from her seat as Belladonna hobbled closer to her. Immediately, Maggie tripped over a vase of flowers and the thing cracked and came to waste under her bare feet, but she could care less about the broken and glittering pieces. Her thick hands took a hold of Bella's shoulder and another took her hand to steady her.

"_Bella, where Bungo?_" Maggie asked brokenly, her accent and pronunciation a train wreck in the slowly mounting chaos of her thoughts. _Where was Bungo? Was she in pain, did her water break, was something wrong with the_ _– _Belladonna was finally moved to a chair and the woman's face pinched with pain. The hand that gripped Maggie's fingers was tight and it shook, but Maggie couldn't tell if it was from pain or nerves.

"_Gamgees. Go. Get him. Hurry!_" Belladonna's words fared no better in their deliverance. Maggie only held onto the woman's hand tighter and hesitated. She shook her head and knelt beside the panting mother.

"_Cannot. You pain, no is good._" Maggie stuttered with frustration. She vaguely remembered where the hole for the Gamgees' family was and she could possibly get there without taking a wrong turn down a hill and becoming horrifically lost, but at the moment that wasn't a risk she wanted to take. Bella, on the other hand, was not about to have her emotional turmoil. With a hard frown of her brow and an angry glint of steel in her eyes, Bella's grip released Maggie's fingers and shoved at her shoulder.

"_Now, Margaret. Go. Now!_" The last of it came out in a hiss and Maggie found herself wiggling with frighteningly ungraceful stumbles to obey. Another piece of furniture met its untimely end with an impact from Maggie's hammer of a knee and she would have laughed at the wildly broken chair but a sudden gasp of pain from the woman _she was leaving behind_ told her very clearly that _now_ was most certainly not the time to be laughing about wayward limps and their misfortunes.

Maggie burst from the front door and the poor patrolling night watchman nearly came to grief with his lantern down the hillside. She had no time to stop and barked an apology to him (it might have been in English, _shit_) and thundered down the pathway toward the Gamgees' hobbit hole. She was alarmed by the sound of hooves following her, but when she turned to look over her shoulder, there was nothing. '_It's your own goddamn feet, you fuckin' mammoth, just go!_' Despite the night's cover, her vision was clear and bright and she found the turn she needed to reach her destination.

Her feet upheaved a good chuck of earth from the path as she gripped a fence pole and did her best to turn on a goddamn dime but that didn't happen as gracefully as she would have hoped. Maggie hopped on the toes of her feet and winced as rocks bit into her ankles, but she continued to fly until she spotted the hole she was looking for, '_and there's Bungo just leaving!_'

Bella's husband was halfway through the hobbit-y longwinded goodbyes when Maggie came to a staggering stop _into_ Hamfast Gamgee's gate. The poor gate was just wrecked from the weight of her body slamming into it full force due to her inability to control her own mass and Bungo reared up with a lecture ready at the tip of his tongue. '_Oh for the love of God, now is not the time for hobbit propriety!'_ Maggie reached out and snagged Bungo by the front of his coat and hauled him forward.

"_Bella, baby, help –_ shit!" It was as far as she managed to get before Bungo shoved her back with his little self and bolted past her, his eyes wide with alarm. Hamfast's voice came into sharp detail and before Maggie could make sense of what he was saying, the hobbit disappeared into his hole. Maggie growled slightly ('_Bella's having a baby and you're going back – whatever!'_) and turned on her heavy heel to gallop back the way she had come.

The door was wide open when she arrived and she didn't stop to clean off her feet (as she normally did when entering Bag End) before trotting through the hallway with the sounds of gasps and half-yells guiding her. Bungo had taken his wife from the living area and by the time Maggie had caught up with them, they were nearly halfway to the bedroom.

'_Now or never, Margaret!_' She would have die from embarrassment otherwise, but her friend's pain twisted a knot in her chest so painfully that it choked her. Maggie swooped in from behind the couple and willed her limbs to use that obscene strength that lurked in her muscles. Belladonna yelped in surprise and Bungo hiccupped with his baffled shout, but Maggie ignored them. With the mother-to-be cradled in her arms (and for being such a nugget and pregnant, Maggie was momentarily mystified at the lightness of the other woman's body), Maggie hurried with heavy footsteps to the couples' bedroom.

She deposited Bella onto the feather bed and immediately shot away from the edge of the bed as Bungo came up beside her. Sweat already collected at the edge of Bella's brow and Bungo was muttering to her, his hands shaking and nervously gliding over Bella's convulsing form. Rapid-fire words shot out of Bella's mouth and Bungo only gave his wife a quick nod before shooting from the bedroom like his heels had been set on fire.

Maggie found herself pressed deeply into a far corner of the bedroom. Her body was shaking (though not nearly as badly as Bella's) and fear gripped her legs and kept her prisoner in the shadows of the corner. Bella struggled on the bed, her hands fluttering from one place to another. One held her up against the headboard of the bed, the other held the curve of her stomach and every now and again, Bella gritted her teeth, her heels twisting in the blankets.

'_Please don't die,_' Maggie felt the fearful thought cloud her mind. '_Please don't let this take you, please, please,_' the mantra was cut short as the bedroom door was pulled open and in walked Gilda Hamfast, her apron pristine along her waist, her honeycomb colored curls pulled back into a hasty braid and her blue-eyed gaze narrowed on Belladonna. The other woman marched into the bedroom and rolled up her sleeves and Maggie felt a small wave of relief take her.

'_Right. Midwife. Right, right, she knows what she's doing,_' the comfort she felt at the sight of Gilda was short-lived, because the hobbit woman noticed her in the corner and jabbed a finger in her direction.

"_Margaret. Get me towels, small cloths, warm water and –_" Gilda stopped as Bungo reappeared in the doorway with a tray that was laden with a teapot and cups. Gilda snorted and waved him away, "_Do not be daft, Mr. Baggins! She cannot have that now, not with the baby, she would just be sick all over the bed!_"

Maggie, of course, could understand nothing of this. Gilda's words were like short fire-crackers that snapped and made both her and Bungo jump at the sounds. Bungo's arms shook and the tray's contents rattled with the movement so he hurriedly set the tray down on a stool and left it. Bungo's face had gone deathly pale and his voice was lost. Gilda growled, "_If you are not going to help, get out – and take her with you, she's useless!_"

There was no resistance when Bungo stepped over and took the sleeve of her dress and hauled her right out the door. Both of them slammed into opposite walls and inhaled giant gulps of air. After a few moments between them, the only sounds coming from within the bedroom (whose door was now firmly shut), Bungo laughed brokenly.

"_One would think… we were giving birth, no?_" He tried to joke and gave Maggie the smallest of crooked smiles. Maggie shook her head frantically and dropped to the floor; her knees bend and pressed up into her face. Her hurt roared in her chest and she felt herself choke again at her throat, her nerves tightening and creating havoc within her body.

'_What is she going to do? There's nothing here to protect her! There's – there's no epidurals, no painkillers, no sterilization, no _nothing!' A low and hard yell came from within the bedroom and Maggie shamefully shut her eyes and burrowed into the curves of her knees. Bungo fretted by the door and it mounted onto her guilt that she could do nothing to soothe _his_ nerves, least of all hers!

'_What if she loses too much blood? What if,_' Maggie took in a ragged breath when another scream came from within the bedroom and Gilda's voice ripped through it with Bungo's name at the rear end of it. The father-to-be hustled down the hallway in a flash and echoes of his movements rolled down the hallway. '_What's going to happen to the baby? There's nothing for him here, what if he gets sick, and what if the midwife isn't enough?'_

Bungo soon reappeared and Maggie couldn't bother to bring her head up, she wouldn't have been able to see him through the tears in her vision anyway. She choked on a sob and brought her large hands to cover her ears against Bella's screams. _'God, I'm so fuckin' useless! Why didn't I go to medical school or nursing? Why didn't I take a practical career?! No – no, Margaret had to go and be a fuckin' smartass and take computer graphics! Fat load of good it does me _now!'

The door swung open and Bungo tripped out of the room. With a smart snap behind him, the door was shut and he was left in the hallway with her, a dwarf huddle on the ground and wrapped into her knees for dear life. A shuddering exhale escaped Bungo and to Maggie's immense surprise, his arms appeared around her and he hugged her to his chest.

It would have been laughable, really. When she looked back on it years later and told Bilbo the story of his birth, it was _hilarious_. A small hobbit husband knelt to the ground with his too-short arms wrapped firmly around a hundred-sixty-pound boulder of a dwarf in the hopes that he could comfort _both_ of them amidst Belladonna's painful wails. It was laughable, truly, when it was put into prospective.

It sure as hell wasn't funny _right now_.

And it wasn't funny for the four hours of labor it took to finally birth the damn kid.

Bungo never once remained still beyond those first ten minutes he took to hug Maggie. He stood and paced and occasionally poked his head into the bedroom (only to be chased out by a bloody cloth that Gilda threw at his head) and he would whine under his breath and twist his fingers together. Maggie was just a waste of space, if she was honest with herself. She couldn't move, she couldn't even bring herself to open her eyes because every time Bella screamed, new tears would come to her eyes.

'_Please, please, don't die, don't die on me, _please,'was all that would go through her head. Bella had already turned into too much for Maggie to lose. Within the five months that she had spent with the couple, the two of them had become better parents to her than anything she had known before.

She couldn't dream of a morning without Belladonna making breakfast.

She couldn't imagine an afternoon in the living area without Bungo and his lessons for her.

She just couldn't see one without the other and it made her pray all the harder to whatever smoke-huffing lunatic of a Power-That-Is (because really, why the hell was she here anyway?) that Bella _survived_ the birthing. She wasn't so sure about the child just yet, but Bella _had_ to live.

She just had to.

…

The baby arrived early in the morning, on a crisp September day. Maggie wasn't sure how (or _why_) she had fallen asleep curled into a sweaty ball of flesh against the wall in the hallway, but she had. She felt a shift in the air as the door swung open gently and Bungo dove into the room, calling for his wife. Gilda stepped out with a sigh and her large, hairy feet paused by Maggie's bare toes. Maggie could feel the crust of tears at the corners of her eyes and she wiped at them before looking up at Gilda.

"_She is fine._" Gilda murmured soft and slow. "_It is a boy. Good one. Healthy and strong, he is. Go in, but be quiet and respectful._" Maggie could only give the older woman a shaky nod of her head since she only understood every other word, but it was enough, and she stood on trembling legs. Gilda shook her chin at the sight of the dwarf and sighed again before she turned on her heel and made her way toward the kitchen.

Maggie barely caught a glimpse of blood stains up to her elbows and on her apron. She had to hold her breath to keep from vomiting at the sight.

She moved in and instantly became aware that the room was almost unnaturally silent. A fire was crackling away in its hearth near the foot of the bed and Bungo seemed to melt into the edge of the feather-mattress next to his wife, both of his pale hands wrapped around one of Bella's. His knuckles were white and her arm was limp and for just a _split second_ Maggie envisioned a pale and still Belladonna, caught by rigor mortis.

'_Stop that, you drama queen. Christ Almighty.'_ Belladonna rested and Maggie would never tell anyone (even Bilbo) that she waited until she saw the rise of her friend's chest. That single breath allowed an ocean's worth of relief to smother her and Maggie felt her knees threaten to buckle. Her eyes scanned the room and right beside Belladonna was a small bundle of tightly wrapped cloth.

Maggie hesitated after she took a step forward, her eyes on Bungo, but the man was too concerned with the presence of his wife that he paid Maggie no mind as she moved forward toward his child. The baby was washed in shadows from the fire and the darkness of the room and he was still and silent. Carefully and with trembling fingers, Maggie reached down and brought the bundle up into her hold.

At this, Bungo looked up and his mouth opened silently. Maggie froze with the baby halfway up to her chest and she felt new tears spring to her eyes. '_What is with the waterworks, seriously –_' but whatever Bungo was going to say was forgotten with a shake of his head. Instead, he smiled weakly at Maggie, "_Do you know how to hold an infant, Margaret?_"

She fervently nodded and with that, Bungo sighed and allowed her to continue with a tip of his chin. The baby was warm and heavy in her arms and for a brief moment she had a philosophical thought of '_I wonder if this is what being Atlas feels like,_' but the thought was gone as soon as her ears caught the quiet coo from the little boy in her arms.

She brought him to her chest and secured him before she gently pushed away the fold around his forehead. Wispy curls appeared and they were spun with reds, gold, and brown hues. His eyes were softly shut, but his mouth popped wide as he yawned with another soft cluck. He was absolutely _miniature_ in her arms and she felt like breathing too deeply with him against her would break him.

Small pointed ears protruded from the curls and a button nose sat in the middle of a face with blotchy-red skin. His nose and eyes weren't even as big as her blunt pinky nail. Everything about him hurt to look at, he was so small and unprotected.

Her vision blurred at the corners of her eyes and Maggie held her breath even as the tears streamed down her face. The creature, the baby, was so small, with pointed ears and floppy feet. Even now, his hair curled like his parents and she _knew_. It didn't matter if she was stuck here for just now, or forever.

"I'll protect him, Bella," she promised fiercely to her exhausted and quietly sleeping friend, "I promise."

* * *

**Notes:** Yay! We're getting _somewhere_, at least. Let me know what you think!


	6. Learning

**Chapter Six**

_Learning_

* * *

The first week with the new arrival had been chaotic. Maggie had never felt more useless and from time to time she wondered if her older brother had ever suffered this way because of her? Bilbo Baggins was a small creature that hiccuped and cooed, but hardly ever cried. At least, not yet, though Maggie figured there really wasn't _anything_ for him to cry over. He stayed in the bedroom with his mother, both of them bedridden (Gilda had to shove Belladonna back onto the bed after the second day) until the midwife said otherwise.

This, of course, left Maggie and Bungo to do most of the housework. Not that either of them minded, but Maggie could see her panic reflect in Bungo's shakes and twitching fingers. Gilda had given them a list of things that they could feed Belladonna and _another_ list of things to keep away from her, lest the baby become sick from nursing. Maggie couldn't rightly tell if any of the information was suggested out of true medical fact or superstition, but she wasn't about to fight Gilda over it (oh hell no, thank you).

Bungo helped her with breakfast, and how to cook without burning the food over the fire (because the fireplace wasn't like an electric or gas stove that just _told_ you how hot it was) and how to make a tea strong enough for Belladonna. Bilbo remained quiet and blinked at the passing shadows as they flickered around in the room and Maggie did her best to remember what she could from her high school sex education class.

'_He can see shadows. He can hear muffled noises… or is it different for hobbits?_' The question had come to her more than once when she was allowed visitation rights (Gilda was firm that the mother and child had to bond strongly before others could interact with him) and got to hold him while he slept. He responded to small stimuli, but he was too young to smile and could only smack his lips when he was hungry or upset over something.

She had yet figured out which was what, though.

Belladonna recovered quickly, but it seemed that Maggie was the only one amused over Bella's escape attempts to the bathroom and the garden. Gilda often herded the mother back into the bedroom, growling about the outdoors being brought inside (or something to that affect, Maggie _still_ couldn't keep up with Gilda's rapid speech), and Bungo's worrywart nature never chilled and always fired up whenever he stepped into the bedroom and found his wife missing.

It relaxed Maggie, somewhat, to know that she wasn't the only one growing an ulcer over her insecurities when it came to Belladonna and the baby. The nights were just as long and her normal trips outside to the grand oak tree or down into the fields were now all but completely forgotten. Most nights found Maggie awake and sitting as close to her bedroom door as possible (without being in the hallway, Bungo had already scolded her over that one), with the door wide open to allow her to listen for Belladonna or Bilbo's cries.

Every time he did cry, Maggie felt her heart leap into her throat and choke her. Really, there was probably no reason to be so fearful, but the image of the tiny baby pressed against her chest and in her arms was burned into her memories and flashed brightly whenever he did scream out with indignation. Her constant worry was that she was just _too_ strong, and _too_ uncontrollable to handle the baby or be near him. Belladonna swatted away her fears whenever they appeared, though, and would guilt Maggie into holding the baby when she visited.

"_He needs his sister as much as he needs his parents._" Belladonna laughed as she deposited Bilbo into Maggie's arms one afternoon. "_It will do him no good to just know me or his father. We…_" The woman cut off and Maggie brought her curious gaze away from Bilbo to her best friend. A strange flicker of pinched pain took her features, but at Maggie's glance, Belladonna smiled and waved it away.

Maggie frowned, "_What is, Bella? Hurt?_"

"_No, no, my dear._" The woman smiled again, but Maggie could see it still didn't reach far enough to wrinkle the corners of her eyes. "_I am just getting a bit ahead of my plans. With Bilbo here now, I always seem to look too far into the future and forget to enjoy the time I have now._" At Maggie's blink, Belladonna laughed and a hand came up to hold her chin. "_I apologize. I must sound so strange._"

"_No strange._" Maggie answered and shifted Bilbo's (non-existent) weight in her arms. "_You is scared of… of future? Future? His?_"

"_No. Not… not his. Ours. Bungo's and my life._" Belladonna murmured softly as her hands left her face and fussed with the blankets around her. She had a faint look of concern over her brow and she sighed with a small glance at Bilbo in Maggie's arms. "_Maggie. Do you know how long dwarves live?_" At Maggie's shake of her head, Belladonna smiled sadly, "_Dwarves can live to be almost three hundred years old._"

Maggie had to take a moment to count by tens and add as she went, as Bungo had instructed, her to get to the number equivalent to the same pronunciation Belladonna had used. Maggie blinked and felt the blood drain from her face as a phantom punch took her breath away. She nearly clutched Bilbo too tightly and hastily she placed Bilbo back, next to his mother.

"_Maggie._" Belladonna started in an attempt to calm her, "_Maggie, please stop. Wait._"

"_Three hundred… three hundred years. Bella, I cannot. I no do that._" Maggie pleaded with the female softly. She knew it would do nothing to help her, or stop what could possibly be her future, but it was something, even small. Three hundred years to do _what_, precisely? Maggie could barely fathom a normal _human_ lifetime of close to ninety (and that was being generous, considering the environment she was in) and just that alone had frightened her.

But _three hundred years?_ How was she supposed to survive that long and not go completely insane? What would she do, where would she – Maggie stopped pacing around Bella's bed and turned to face the woman, tears now at the corners of her eyes. Maggie swallowed and nervously laced her fingers together and twisted them. She opened her mouth once or twice, but could form no words. She wanted to say so much, but her limited ability to speak caged her. Instead, a quiet sob escaped her.

Belladonna frowned and gently opened one arm on the side of the bed that Bilbo didn't rest on, and Maggie moved to it with a trip. She knelt beside the bed and her head dropped to Bella's hip, her hands fisted into the blanket that covered the new mother. Belladonna's hand came to the top of Maggie's head and gently caressed the length of her hair as far as she could reach.

"_I had meant to talk to you before this, Margaret._" Belladonna murmured with sadness. Gentle fingers caressed Maggie's ear and the young dwarf could only sniffle into the blanket. "_I know this must be terrifying to you. There is so much you do not seem to know, and I wish I could… I could just give you these answers, Margaret._"

"_How long hobbits?_" Maggie's muffled voice came up through the blanket. It was a moment more before Maggie could pull her reddened face away from the cloth and stare up at Belladonna with a tear-stained face. Belladonna gave her the smallest of grieved smiles and sighed with a hand that came to Maggie's cheek.

"_Only a hundred._"

A fresh bloom of grief blossomed in Maggie's gut and she felt sick. Her throat flooded with moisture and she puffed her cheeks to keep from being sick so close to Bilbo. '_You'll only live for a hundred years…? You'll only be here for a fraction of my… of my lifetime?_' Maggie pressed her lips together painfully and shut her eyes against the new wave of tears. The heel of one of her palms came up to her eye socket and she pressed it against her eye. '_Not even a fraction… less than that, you've already lived half your life, haven't you?'_

"_Only hundred… what I do after, Bella? What I do when all gone?_" Her voice broke halfway through her words and Belladonna leaned over with a soft shush and pressed her forehead covered in curls over Maggie's broad boulder of a brow. They were silent as Maggie allowed the tears to fall. It now seemed all her fears rushed up to her at once and gripped her lungs so tightly that it was ice that she breathed through, instead of flesh.

'_What am I supposed to do when you're dead and gone?'_ Maggie thought quietly to herself, grief laced even through her thoughts. '_How am I supposed to survive without you or Bungo? How am I supposed to go nearly twice as long all by myself?'_ The idea terrified her, because to suddenly think that Bag End would be empty of its masters and left cold and unattended just left Maggie bereft. The world beyond the door of the warm hobbit hole now seemed too vast and empty and distant. Who beyond these gentle hobbits would have the patience to deal with her and her oddities? This wasn't her world; she couldn't just strike out by herself again and hope for the best.

This world was nothing like her old one, this one held many more dangerous and much more that she would never understand. How was she supposed to survive that for _three times as long_?

'_Who's ever going to be as unconditional as you two have been?'_ All these things she wanted to ask, and couldn't, and she knew they wouldn't need to be asked because Belladonna would have no answer for her. No one could predict the future, no one could see so far ahead as to give Maggie peace of mind to her life, left alone and in solitude.

"_You will have Bilbo, Margaret._" Belladonna whispered into the silence between them. Maggie blinked; she hadn't realized she closed her eyes for so long, having pictured the hobbit mother in her mind so clearly and vividly. Belladonna smoothed away some of Maggie's hair and allowed her slender fingers to graze the beard along her jaw before coming to her chin. Belladonna smiled as best she could, but tears were also in her eyes. "_Bilbo will need you in his life, as you have needed me and Bungo. He will be your companion, your brother, your friend. Will you be the same for him?_"

"_Yes. Always._"

That shouldn't have even been a question.

…

The months slowly went by and Maggie remained diligent in her promise to Bilbo, both the one she had made on the day of his birth and the one she had made to his mother weeks after. The little hobbit child was round and chubby, but she assumed all babies were at that age. He was too small to crawl and too fragile to allow on the floor, but there were moments that his mother's fire took him and he could be found trying to wiggle his way out of his wrapped-blanket prison.

It was December by Shire Reckoning when he finally managed it, and he only four months old. Maggie sat by her writing desk, Bungo's lesson book in front of her, but she was utterly captured by the sight just a few feet from her. Bilbo was placed in his makeshift crib of fine oak and polished metal, and his movements had increased enough that the crib began to sway on its own accord.

_That_ was what had originally caught her attention, what followed only stayed her focus even more. The little thing, the _tiniest_ of creatures she had ever seen, was now fighting to remove himself from his bundle. Little gasps and high pitched grunts could be heard as baby Bilbo did his best to wiggle out of his prison. A little arm first came loose, and then the other, and finally the fold was removed from his head and he squealed happily.

Maggie could only watch from her desk, amazed. '_That fuckin' little devil…_' She continued to watch as the infant finally won his long, hard battle with his confinement, and then could only laugh as he stared up at the curved ceiling with an expression of utter perplexity. '_Yeah, that's right, you little shithead,_' Maggie thought to herself between her smothered chuckles, '_what now? Where are you gonna go? Oh shit!_' The little hobbit seemed not nearly so content to remain in his crib, and had turned onto his side to continue his escape.

"Oooh, no you don't, punk." Maggie snickered in English. She moved toward the crib and placed a hand on the rail that caged him. "Where in God's name do you think you're going, huh?" The curly head little beast turned his eyes up to her and a toothless smile greeted her. Maggie shook her head and reached into the crib to lift him. "Yeah, yeah. Let's just smile at Maggie! She'll do whatever I want because I've got her fuckin' wrapped around my tiny ass fingers. You're such a spoiled brat, you know that?"

Her tirade was interrupted by a loud squeal from Bilbo, immensely pleased that he had been retrieved and removed from his prison. His little fists bobbed in the air happily and he spat at her with his big lips and pink tongue. Maggie felt her face crunch as a cool wetness splattered against her cheek and she sighed. They shared a look and Bilbo hiccupped with his noiseless laughter.

"Yeah, whatever," Maggie teased and brought her thick nose to his face. Another squeal escaped him as he shoved at her cheek with his meaty, baby fist as the edge of her beard now scratched at his peachy skin. "Oh, yeah, don't want to fight now, do you? That's what I thought, punk." Maggie leaned in further and blew her lips into his neck, growling and nibbling as softly as she could. The baby now screamed in her hold and laughter sprung out of him as he fought her and tried to beat her away with his hands and face.

"_Maggie._"

The dwarf froze at the sound of Bungo's voice and slowly she turned toward the kitchen and grinned at the young father. He stood at the mouth of the kitchen with his hands on his hips and flour in his hair. The hobbit could only roll his eyes at her, but she could see his cheeks twitch and become slightly pink with amusement.

"_He started it._"

"_Maggie!_"

…

Gandalf didn't arrive to see Bilbo until the turn of the new year within The Shire. Maggie very nearly got away with not mentioning a birthday to Belladonna and Bungo, but the old meddling weasel had brought it up in conversation, _of course._ They had been seated comfortable in the designated family room further into the hill of Bag End, with a fire blazing before them (and carefully fenced _and_ bordered to keep a very active Bilbo at bay) and a few cups of tea and foodstuffs around them.

Maggie had never really had a _true_ Yuletide holiday back at home. There was no trees, no decorations, no traditions to practice, just nothing at all. Her mother wasn't usually around and by the time five in the afternoon rolled around, her older brother was well into his second bottle of hard liquor. This, though, which she now shared alongside the Baggins' and Gandalf, was nice. It was warm and cozy and completely unnatural and strange. Bilbo was at his mother's feet as Belladonna sat in her reclined chair and he gnashed away with his two new teeth on a leather toy his father had given him.

Belladonna looked to be asleep, wrapped in her shawl and heavy against her chair. Bungo sat not too far to her right and held a book in his lap with a cup balanced in his other hand on the armrest. Gandalf hunched over his pipe in one of the few human-sized chairs they had (Maggie had the other one) and contemplated the flames as they danced before his eyes.

"_Margaret._" Gandalf called to her. The young female dwarf looked up from her journal in her lap and tilted her head at the wizard. He puffed at his pipe and grumbled with a thought. "_How old are you, my dear girl?_"

"_Three and twenty._" Margaret replied readily. Her speech was still rugged and sharp around the edges, but what it lacked in grace it had in strength of sturdy bones. Some phrases and the turns of the words were a mystery to her, such as her numbers, but the steering was much less blind now when she spoke, with eight months under her belt, and she was glad for it. Maggie shifted in her chair, "_Why do you ask, Gandalf?_"

"_I am merely curious, Margaret._" Gandalf replied with a small tip of his head. Maggie felt one of her eyebrows tick up toward her hairline. '_Right. Just curious, he says. Buuuuullshit._' But if he wasn't going to say anything else on it, she wasn't going to pursue it either. She turned back to the journal in her hand, the piece of charcoal having stained her fingers a long while ago, and the twisted (and unseemly) likeness of the great oak outside was starting to take shape.

Of course, not half an hour later into the smooth night did Gandalf deem it fit to intrude into the silence with his questions once again.

"_Margaret._" Gandalf twittered at her. Maggie paused in her drawing practice and blinked with a frown down at her work. Slowly, she turned her head to the old wizard and cocked her chin at him, but he seemed wholly undisturbed by interrupting her. He puffed out his cheeks and his big, bush-like brow fluttered on his face.

"_Yes?_" She asked when she realized he wasn't going to continue at the mere turn of her gaze. Honestly, it was like pulling teeth with the wizard sometimes. Even Bilbo had a better response time than the old man just an arm's length away from her.

"_Three and twenty… I had mentioned it before, to Belladonna, but now that you are capable of understanding, I wish to discuss it with you._" At this, Belladonna appeared to come awake and sat upright in her chair. Bungo's eyes remained on the fire, but he sighed and sipped his tea. Both signs had Margaret tensing and she curled her folded legs tighter against her (not like there was much room on the chair, anyway) and tucked her journal further into her lap.

"_What is it that you wish to discuss, Gandalf?_" Bilbo was taken up from his place at Belladonna's feet and held in her lap. He protested lightly and growled around his leather toy (a habit he had learned from his dwarven sister, unfortunately), but otherwise continued with his play.

Belladonna, though, cleared her throat. "_Gandalf…_"

"_She may not be old enough in the dwarven culture, Belladonna Baggins, but she has shown enough growth and maturity to warrant this conversation._" Well, if Maggie hadn't been worried before, she certainly was now. She glanced between her companions, but only Bungo refused to meet her gaze. Maggie huffed and gave Gandalf a narrowed look.

"_And what is this issue we must discuss? You have me worried, wizard._" Maggie replied stiffly.

Gandalf sighed as well. "_When you first arrived, my dear girl, I had suggested to your keepers,_" he gestured casually to Belladonna and Bungo just off to his side, "_that you be taken to Rivendell, home of Lord Elrond._"

"_The… elf._" Maggie said lamely. That was still a thing to wrap her head around. She had only ever seen hobbits and Gandalf, and that alone had stretched the imagination of her mind, but to see elves? She had read enough of Belladonna's books to know that these creatures were well beyond other-worldly and to see one was to see stars.

"_Yes_," Gandalf answered sharply, "_Though, do you mean to tell me now that you've regained some of your memory – and that such a memory is only of the ill-will dwarves harbor for elves?_" Gandalf had snapped at her so soundly that Maggie recoiled from his words. Belladonna frowned angrily and turned her heated gaze to Gandalf.

"_Hush now, Gandalf. For shame, I had already told you that such a thing as elves was new to her!_" Belladonna's words were like a blade that cut through Gandalf's ire and the old wizard wrinkled back down into himself. Bilbo's bottom lip trembled from the turn of the mood in the room and he looked up to his mother with tears. Belladonna cooed gently to her baby and hugged him, murmuring soothing things to him.

"_I do apologize. In all my dealings with dwarves, their stubbornness is an obstacle I have very little patience for, Miss Margaret._" Gandalf shook his head and fiddled with his pipe. There was a beat of silence and Maggie felt her body release its tension, but she doubted very much that the discussion was over.

"_Why should I go to this lord?_" Maggie asked quietly into the stilled room. She brought her gaze away from her journal and back to Gandalf.

"_Your situation is not wholly unique, Margaret. There are many who have suffered the effects of a head injury such as yours._" Gandalf's gaze shifted from her eyes to her forehead and she couldn't help but raise a hand to the long scar that marred her forehead from the middle of her brow and down to the corner of her eye. Even now, Maggie was unsure if that had been from dropping into her new world or from the car accident in the old one.

Gandalf nodded his head, "_Yes. I had thought that Lord Elrond would give you some much needed attention. Not to say that your mind is completely muddled, my dear, but it is strange that you have no family… no friends, and no home._"

"_This is her home._" Bungo immediately answered.

"_This is my home._" Maggie followed in time with Bungo.

Maggie glanced up over at Bungo, their statements having collided together in the air. She smiled faintly at the young father and he gave her a tight nod. Though they may not have had as open a bond as Belladonna and her shared, Maggie would be the last to renounce his relationship with her, and his goodwill.

"_Be that as it may,_" Gandalf chuckled in amusement, "_Her situation must be dealt with, and Lord Elrond may have information for her as to her past, as well as where she may find herself in the future._" Margaret turned her gaze away at that, the discussion of her lifespan still painful in her mind even weeks afterward.

Maggie shook her head and gripped her journal, "_I shall not. I do not wish to leave, not with Bilbo so young._"

"_My dear girl,_" Gandalf countered readily, "_Bilbo will be here when you return. There is no safer place in this world than the Shire, of that I can assure you._" Maggie continued to shake her head. Though Bilbo was nothing to her, not flesh or blood, and she certainly didn't give birth to him, he was as good as a little brother as any. She couldn't imagine leaving him behind, even if the Shire was safe and secure.

'_And how long will I be gone?_' She wanted to ask, but something held her tongue. '_What if I'm gone so long that he starts to learn to walk and talk, to play, and I'm not around?_' The thought of missing those memories pained her and not for the first time, Margaret wondered how _her_ mother had been able to relinquish those precious moments without a care.

"_Margaret._" Gandalf coaxed his way into her silence and the young dwarf snapped her gaze to his face. He gave her the warmest of smiles and leaned over to place his hand on the head of her armrest. "_I would not say this if I did not believe it wise. You have grown so well under the tutelage of your hobbit family, but I believe now is the time to seek a higher power._"

Maggie sighed heavily and her head lulled back onto the support of her chair. "_No more than two months, Gandalf,_" she relented warily, "_Then I return._"

Gandalf blinked and pulled away from her chair. "_Two months, Margaret? Why such a limited amount of time? Is there something important in two months?_" He probably knew damn well what was coming up, she could see that glint in his gaze and she scrunched her nose at him.

"_It is my first birthday here. I wish to share it with Bilbo._"

Gandalf laughed, "_And so you shall, my dear dwarrowdam, and so you shall!_"

* * *

**Notes:** _It's like pulling teeth with Maggie, she doesn't want to go anywhere! Leave your thoughts!_


	7. Pilgrimage

**Chapter Seven**

_Pilgrimage_

* * *

A joint-cracking yawn stretched Maggie's jaw as she scratched the patch of beard by the back of her jowl. The gentle clop of the pony under her was a soft, hushing lullaby and it took everything in her power to keep at least one eyelid open. The other was a complete lost cause. She rubbed at it vigorously, but it did nothing to help. Gandalf's horse trotted in front of her and the wizard hummed happily into the early morning air.

_Old fart_ fluttered through her mind more than once as she watched his back. The morning had started before the crack of dawn. Belladonna and Bungo had greeted her in the kitchen with a small bag of warm bread and apples, another bag with cheese, and her traveling pack was by the door with her belongings. It was with quick hugs and a lingering kiss to baby Bilbo's forehead that Maggie left the only home she knew here with tears flooding her vision.

Now, though, she was about ready to just tip off one side of her sweet pony and do a barrel roll down the road. '_Why, at the ass crack of dawn… what's so important about getting there fucking now, Christ._' The sun glittered through the trees when it couldn't quite reach the canopy of leaves and it was still too weak to warm her skin. The birds chirped over her head and despite the beauty of it all, Maggie tilted her head back and frowned up at the chattering creatures.

"Why the long face, my dear lady?" Gandalf called back to her. Maggie snapped her head forward and stared at his back, but he made no movement aside from the sway of his mount. '_How…?_' She frowned hard enough to pout and not for the first time wondered at his trickery.

"It is early morning, Mister Wizard," she replied softly and fought away another yawn. "I am not… what is word?"

"Not… routinely awake at dawn? Practiced?" Gandalf offered.

"No, no." Maggie yawned anyway, blast it. "It means… _accustomed!_ That is the word."

Gandalf laughed merrily in front of her and his horse clicked its teeth. "It is very good to see that your speech has improved so tremendously, child." There is was again. Maggie _knew_ she had already told the wizard her age, but yet he still continued to call her a child. She supposed it made sense since Gandalf's graying hair and sloping back were not the visages of youth, so that much was at least certain.

"Yes, it has made things much easier now." Maggie continued. This whole thing was very strange, still. Nearly a year was spent in this new and incredible world, but Maggie had found that so long as she stayed within the comfort and safety of Bag End, she could almost – _almost_ – pretend that the rest of the world was normal like it had been back home. '_On Earth._'

"Perhaps you could be a - , hmm?" Gandalf's voice held a touch of humor and Maggie barely caught the word he used. She urged her pony forward and came up beside the wizard. He glanced at her and with a tilt of her head she conveyed her confusion. His mouth popped, "Ah, yes. Hm, you would not have used that word. A connection. A bridge between your kin and the Elves."

"Why would I need to be such a thing?" Maggie questioned. "Are hobbits not friends with the elves? Belladonna often took walks out into the forest looking for passing caravans of them…" Gandalf chuckled into his scarf and adjusted the hold he had on his staff with a shake of his head.

"No, dear Margaret, it is not the Hobbits I speak of," he grinned at her, "it is your kind, the Dwarves."

Maggie pulled a face. "Why would they not have relationships with elves? Does trade not exist for them? Is that why I never see more of… us?" It was so very strange to think of herself as anything other than human, even after so long. It had taken an uncomfortable amount of personal time and pep talks just to herself to get over the fact that her body had changed so dramatically, or that she sported a beard.

"Your race is the secretive sort." Gandalf tugged lightly at his beard. "They have a secret language, secret names, and they rarely mingle with others."

"But you know of them." Maggie countered. A whole race of people couldn't just go completely unnoticed, not if they were as bulky and hefty as she was, at least.

"Oh yes, we know _of_ them. Caravans come and go between the Iron Hills and the Blue Mountains on routine trading missions. Sometimes they stop in some of the settlements of Men for supplies or to sell goods they would not trade amongst each other." Gandalf's horse threw its head back and whined angrily at something and the wizard reached over to pet its graceful neck. "So, again, we are aware of each other, but their most inner cultures and traditions are a mystery."

Maggie glanced at her pony's reins in her hands and rubbed the leather between her fingers thoughtfully. "Is this why you are taking me to Elrond? Am I to be placed into a populace with my kin?" The fear in her voice was unmasked and her earthy gaze flicked up to the wizard next to her.

Gandalf hummed. "No. Originally that was my intent, but you… I beg your pardon, my lady, but you have proven to be quite unique. I am afraid that to place you with your people would be a mistake."

"Oh," Maggie swallowed the lump in her throat. "Then why are we headed to the elves?"

"To help you learn, Margaret." Gandalf told her gently. "You are mystery to me. Your mind and your physical age do not match any of your mannerisms, and you behave more like the people of Men and Elves than you do of the Dwarves. I am hoping that Lord Elrond will be able to shed some light on you."

'_Your first visit to a psychiatrist, Mags. What fun._'

…

The riding was uneventful and Maggie wasn't sure if she was grateful for such a thing. It took them a few days to get to the edge of The Shire and Maggie was amazed at the boundary of the land she had made a home within, unaware of its true distance. The camping was a new experience as she hadn't the time (or the desire) for it in her previous life. It did felt a bit like she was a cheat at it, though, because she had a wizard to light the fire and help her with her bedroll.

Even so, the nights were becoming her favorite parts of traveling. It was quite comical on the first night, when she noticed that the light around her wasn't coming from the fire in front of her. The light that bathed her was smooth and sweet, a gentle swath of silver and glitter. Startled, Maggie looked up and her mouth promptly dropped.

Above her was an explosion of stars that she had only ever seen in her astrology text books. The sky looked splattered from one end as far as she could see to the other with a paint brush's flicker of silver and white paint against a shadowy canvas. The moon was almost as blistering as the sun to look at and Maggie was enraptured by the jewel that floated in the sky. Her neck would hurt before she dropped into her bedroll for the night, but she didn't care.

It saddened her to think that she had missed such a thing back on Earth, '_and that's probably from air pollution and smog. That's painful to know.'_ A hunger struck in her stomach that started at the drop of the setting sun and it made her fingers itch, to reach up and take the stars from the sky and devour the scintillating gems as if they were scraps of food for her starvation. The feeling was almost overwhelming and to force her gaze to look away was difficult. She would have to learn to control that sensation, whatever the hell it was or where from within her it had started.

Now, though, for the first time in months, Maggie felt useless. She knew nothing of what to do in the wilderness and relied on the old wizard for all her answers. She couldn't even take care of her own pony and that _alone_ made her heart sink with guilt. '_Poor animal has to carry my ass around and I can't even feed her or brush her without making her antsy._' Most nights Maggie found herself by the edge of the fire as the wizard went about his nightly routine of setting up the camp, tending to the animals, and making their dinner.

'_I'm a sack of useless bricks. What was it that Belladonna said? If you don't know, ask. Yes, mom._' A small smile formed on her lips and after she threw her bedroll out by the fire and the boiling pot, she moved toward Gandalf and swallowed nervously. The wizard hummed a tune to the horse and it appeared as if the animal swayed with his brushing and melody. Maggie cleared her throat and the brushing came to a stop.

"Yes?" Gandalf asked with a small glance over his shoulder.

"May I learn?" Maggie asked politely with a point to the brush. "To… care for my pony?"

The wizard chuckled. "Of course, Maggie, and I believe dear Brussel would enjoy your company." He stepped away from his horse and held the brush out to Maggie. She took it with a nervous grip and pressed the bristles of the brush into her opposite palm as she walked toward her mount. The pony, Brussel, lifted his ears at her approach and his nostrils flared with interest.

'… _annnnnd there goes my bravery._' The pony wasn't large, she _knew_ it wasn't large, but the animal still made her anxious. There was a reason her pets back on Earth were nothing more than a cat and a fish. Both creatures only needed her for feeding and cleaning, the rest they did themselves. Maggie swallowed and jolted in her skin when Gandalf came up beside her.

"Now, this is no way to start." Gandalf easily moved toward Brussel and patted the pony upon the nose with affection. The wizard look to her, bushy brows raised in question. "He will not harm you, so long as you do not harm him first. Come, hold out your hand. He knows you, my dear; you have ridden on him for a few days now. He will welcome your affection, please trust me." Maggie nodded and took a few steps until she was near Brussel. She took slow and deep breaths to help her steady her nerves and relax her body. If she was tense, her animal would be as well. She could remember that much from caring for her cat.

"Hello, Brussel." Maggie spoke softly and a smile ticked at the corner of her lips as one of Brussel's ears flicked toward her. "Please, do not bite me. I do not want to start this journey with an infection." Gandalf's chuckle relaxed her and she felt the anxious heat release from her muscles as she let go. Gently and with as much love as she could muster without her jittery fingers interrupting, she took the brush to Brussel's neck and worked the stiff bristles down his muscle.

The pony relaxed at her touch and a real smile took over her face.

…

It was now a week a half on the road and she was about damn ready to kill someone (the wizard was looking like a tempting target). Her ass was completely sore and her left butt cheek had a blister on it that made her sit weird upon her saddle. Her ankles hurt from the heavy boots that she wore almost constantly now (because to take them off to sleep was just a nightmare in the morning) and her legs trembled from the effort to keep herself steady.

'_How the fuck did the ranchers do this for months on end?'_ She grumbled, but never loud enough for the wizard to take notice. Maybe he did, and he was a vindictive old bastard, but he never said a thing about her sores or discomfort. Her back itched from the bedroll and the rocky ground they would sleep on, and her stomach grumbled from the lack of full meals. Belladonna, Maggie realized, spoiled her rotten with so much food and comfort. She felt worse off now than she did when she was on Earth.

The only things that managed to cool her ever rising temper at the situation was Brussel and her stargazing. The pony was affectionate and a cuddle-bug after the first night that she had attempted to brush him. Whenever she came near for his nightly cleaning, he would move his face into her chest and nuzzle with a snort. He would stay there until she moved him to reach beyond his neck and even then, he turned his head to look back at her.

The stars only got brighter and the feeling within her gut became hotter.

"Gandalf." Maggie called from across the camp. Brussel munched on the grass in front of him and the wizard looked up from the fire and gazed at her. "… May I ask you something, about me?"

"About you, Maggie?" Gandalf clarified. "What could I possibly know about you that you cannot know of yourself, my child?"

"No, no." Maggie shook her head and pointed to her beard and then her chest. "I do not mean what is in my mind, Gandalf. I mean to ask what… I want to ask about Dwarves. My… my people."

"Oh, I see." Gandalf nodded and then gestured toward her with his pipe. "Come, then. Ask me what questions you have in your mind, Margaret."

"I have this feeling," she began, a wayward thought going through her mind of _he's going to think I'm crazy_ and she stepped toward her bedroll, "it is in my chest and I felt it most strongly…" she sat on her bedroll and then looked up toward the dark and sparkling sky. "I feel it whenever I see the stars."

"What do you feel?" Gandalf questioned. Maggie brought her gaze to Gandalf at the change of his tone to his voice. It wasn't playful anymore, but more curious and wary. Her heavy brow settled over her eyes and she tilted her head to one side.

"I feel as if I was hungry, as if eating the stars would satisfy my empty stomach." Maggie leaned back on her hands and looked back up toward the sky. "It is something strange when they light up the sky and this heat builds in my stomach. I want to take the stars from the sky, but I know that I cannot. That… is not right, is it?"

Gandalf sighed and tapped his pipe on the rock he sat upon. "I suppose it was a bit much to think that you would be so different from your kin that such a characteristic would not manifest in you."

"What do you mean?" His answer startled her. Was something wrong with her? She wasn't a rich girl back home, but she hadn't been a sticky thief that wanted every pretty bauble she laid her eyes on, '_wait a second…_' Her earthy gaze flashed to the wizard. "Gandalf… is this _greed?_"

"Not completely." The wizard grumbled. "Dwarves are… passionate. Intense. There are no others as fervent in their love of their creations as the Dwarves are, and it is a dangerous trait within them. It is a fine line that they walk, between pride and madness."

"Madness…?" Maggie breathed. "Am I going mad?"

"No, Margaret. Not if you can control it." The old wizard nailed her with a steely gaze and Maggie could feel a shiver roll through her shoulders and down her arms. She sat up straighter and cast her eyes away from her escort. The wizard sighed heavily and when she glanced up, years had settled upon his shoulders. "Some dwarves lose themselves to their greed, but I believe you may be one who does not fall to it. It is only a problem when you can no longer manage your desire. It is a constant battle for Dwarves and one that you must not falter with, for failure…"

"… is madness." Maggie sighed. "I understand. I am sorry for asking."

"No, Margaret." Gandalf stopped her. "I hope that you continue to ask. I shall teach you what little I know of your people in the hopes that you do not make the mistakes that lead to ruin. You must be strong, dear… for Bilbo."

Maggie nodded, "I shall be. I thank you, wizard."

"Tharkûn." Gandalf replied suddenly. Maggie blinked and he continued. "To the Dwarves, my name is Tharkûn. Practice the word and perhaps the rest of your Khuzdul will come easier to your tongue."

"_Aw, c'mon, you're kidding me._" The English slipped and Gandalf raised a brow at her. Maggie shook her head with frustration and rubbed the heel of her palm over her cheek. "Must I learn another language? I can barely speak Westron, _Thh-Thak_, ugh… _Tharkuun._"

Gandalf laughed readily at her words, "Oh yes, I hope that we may be able to teach you more than just one! Khuzdul is secret, but Lord Elrond should know enough to give you a healthy start! And beyond that, if he is gracious and generous, you shall learn _Sindarin_."

Maggie flopped back into her bedroll with a childish whine.

* * *

**Notes: **_Back from a long vacation! Hopefully we'll get the ball rolling again and I can keep you all coming back for more! Thanks greatly to __**tweetzone86**__ for her suggestions and advice, and to __**Borys68**__ who makes me question my own information! It's been a big help._

_Please read and review!_


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